


Ivan Tsarevich and the Secret of the Strawberry Zefirs

by Aamalysstuff



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alfred is 16, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Getting into some Hades/Persephone territory, It's a bit of a soulmates AU at this point, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Magic, Mystery, Mythology References, Romance, Russian Literature, Russian Mythology, Underage Kissing, but not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-06-28 11:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 57,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15705903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aamalysstuff/pseuds/Aamalysstuff
Summary: Alfred and Matthew live a comfortable and boring life in the English countryside, in a house that is most likely not haunted. It all becomes more interesting when a pretty Russian lady shows up at their door one night. At 2 AM. During a storm.It's the start of a story that spans several years and features, in no particular order: Russian confectioneries, crappy English weather, journeying through pre-WW2 Europe, lots of story telling and fine Italian art.Chapters 1-4: Matthew develops a passion for Dostoevsky and Alfred really wants to find out why all the heroes in Russian stories are named Ivan.Chapters 5-6: Alfred goes to Florence, finally meets a man named Ivan and gets his first kiss. It's not exactly what he expected.Chapter 7: Alfred eavesdrops on a secret, gets a fever and learns dragons are actually real.





	1. The House is Probably Not Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Zefir - a type of soft Russian confectionery made by whipping fruit and berry purée with sugar and egg whites

 

It was a dark and stormy night.

Which, truth be told, wasn’t saying much. They lived in England, it was always dark and stormy. And grey and moody and nasty. The difference was in the degree of darkness and storminess and greyness and moodiness. Sometimes it drizzled. Sometimes it poured. It was most generally nasty.

However, in this case, it was especially dark and stormy, even by good old British standards.

The rain was poured and bubbled when it hit, a nice and proper storm that heralded doom and gloom and all that unpleasant business. And the Kirkland Mansion was quite a bit away from the London, far away that you couldn’t really travel the distance by foot, with sprawling acres of land surrounding it so that you never got to see another soul wandering about.

Matthew had tried his best to get used to it. When he first got there, he could have sworn that all the greyness and the dullness and the wind made it harder to breath. But he knew that had to get used to it, because even though he had been all of eight years old at the time, he knew there was no other choice. For better or for worse, it was supposed to be their home. So. Better get used to it.

Alfred still hated it.

He still bitched and moaned over it, even though he’d had six solid years to get used to it, more than enough time to make peace with their fate. He still went over to Matthew’s bed to wake him up if there was a particularly nasty storm outside, if the thunder was too loud or the lightning flashed too bright across the sky.

Usually, it went like…

“Hey, Mattie. Scoot over.”

And Matthew scooted and Alfred laid down next to him and started to talk. And talk. And talk.

“I had a dream that I was turned into a fish and I had to find you, but you were a freshwater fish and I was an Ocean fish. So I had to find a stream and swim from lake to lake, but then I realized you were caught by someone to live in a fish bowl so I had to save you from them”

“But what kind of fish was I?”

“I dunno, a fish. You were yellow.”

“Like a goldfish?”

“I guess.”

“Alfred, those are native to Asia. How did I get in Asia?”

Sometimes it was…

“Hey Mattie, Mattie, Mattie. Wake up. I think I heard something. No, I’m sure I heard something. There was a noise outside my bedroom door, like a _creak_ or a _dum_ or something. Anyway, it sounded a footstep. Just one footstep though, so I think the ghost is back so I came over to check on you and see if you’re okay and not scared. Scoot over.”

So Matthew scooted over and Alfred crawled into bed with him. And Matthew looked at his twin brother whose blue eyes were a little bit too wide, and always made the conscious decision to be a good brother and not mention the fact that Alfred was scared of ghosts.

And sometimes it wasn’t like that at all. Sometimes Matthew just woke at some point in the night and would find Alfred in bed with him, looking a bit guilty. A bit guilty that he woke Matthew up, but probably a bit more guilty that he was there, again. Because Alfred never really slept through the night, and truth be told, it didn’t matter if there was a storm or not.

Matthew knew it was because, before coming to live with Mister Kirkland in his big empty house, they had slept huddled together in an orphanage back in America and then, Matthew would fall asleep while his brother was off telling stories and dreams about the nice people that would adopt them. A nice lady and a nice man, that would come to the orphanage fall in love with them and would want to take them home. And they’d have a dog. Or many dogs.

But the reality of it, which Matthew had understood early on, was that there was no nice lady and nice man to adopt them, because they were too old for that and since the Great War, few people had the money to adopt twins. So sometimes the nice couples that met Alfred’s standards came to meet children and decide on which one they wanted to take home, but they were always passed up.

Alfred wasn’t the problem. Alfred was happy and perky and got along with everyone. Would-be parents gravitated towards him and his big smile and his general sunny disposition. So many of them had been won over by Alfred, but Alfred came with one big glaring issue.

He came with Matthew, and people didn’t want Matthew, because he wasn’t cute and charming and talkative like Alfred, he didn’t make friends easily and he hated meeting the parents that would eventually just want someone else.

Until Mister Kirkland came along, and he wanted them, and they were adopted and shipped across the ocean to live with him in his big empty house. Matthew had been grateful then, when he had been eight and scared and happy to be out of the orphanage, and he was still grateful at fourteen, even when he missed the warm, sunny American summers and had to deal with Alfred constantly moaning about the weather and the ghosts.

There were no ghosts. Probably. Most likely. Though he could admit – hypothetically speaking - if Matthew were ever inclined to believe in such things, he was sure that the Kirkland mansion was probably the best place for a ghost to live. 

 And on a night like this, Matthew was maybe, possibly – _not really,_ but – a bit more willing to believe in ghosts.

“Mattie, Mattie, Mattie. Wake up. I heard something.”

Matthew blinked the sleep out of his eyes, sat up in bed and looked at his brother. Alfred was barefoot on the hardwood floor, and his toes were going to freeze over one day. Should remind him to wear slippers. Socks, at the very least.

“Was it the ghost again, Al?” Matthew sighed, scooted over to make room for his brother, but Alfred made no move to join. He stood there, rooted on the spot, his blue eyes wide and his body looking ready to sprint. Strange, Matthew though. He made no move to burrow under Matthew’s blanket, and that was reason enough for him to pay a bit more attention. Not much – maybe 50% as opposed to the usual 35%

“No. Not that. I thought I woke up because of the storm, but I heard something and it wasn’t the ghost. It came from downstairs. So I got out of my room to see, and I heard it again. Someone’s knocking on the front door.” His brother’s spoke slower than usual, his voice as serious as it could possibly get. Not very, but at least he tried. It got Matthew to be more alert than usual – whatever it was that Alfred heard, it got him to focus on it. There was probably some sort of plan already forming in his head about what to do.

Matthew looked at the clock on his bedside to check for the time. It was a little over 2 in the morning. There was a storm raging outside and it had been for a while. Arthur wasn’t expecting anyone, no one arrived in the middle of the night anyways, he always told them before and…  

“There. I heard it again.” Alfred bolted towards the hallway, and Matthew got up, got his slippers and started to follow him before he had time to really process it. Alfred had stopped at the head of the staircase, and...yeah, there was a knock on the door. “See, there’s someone there.”

Matthew felt himself tense all over. Someone knocked on the door. Again. It wasn’t a loud banging noise, it was a little _tap tap tap_ that could have easily went unnoticed during the rain, but if you listened for it…

There was something uncomfortable knotting in Matthew’s stomach. There was someone at the door. At 2 in the morning. During a storm.

Every day, there were some cars that passed by on the main road. Not many. The ones that stopped at the gate were and far in between, they rarely had people over. There was a little village nearby, and every morning there was this old lady that made her way from the village to the estate so she could cook for them. Every week, her equally old husband came over and did the usual gardening stuff to keep it all looking clean and polished. But the average age people there was _old_ and they never came around here if it wasn’t for an explicit reason. At 2 in the morning, there was no reason for them to be here and Mister Kirkland wasn’t the kind to entertain guests. People never just wandered about and stumbled upon the place, you had to look for it to find it.

“Alfred, wait!” His brother was already rushing down the stairs, so Matthew naturally had to follow him. “Alfred wait, don’t just open the door! We need to get Arthur!”

Alfred didn’t stop, he was just single-mindedly marching towards the door. Of course his brother would rush ahead to open the door for someone that was knocking in the middle of the night without thinking who it could be.

“No, Mattie, it’s gonna take too long, and maybe they’ll leave, or Arthur won’t want to open!” That was actually what Matthew was hoping to achieve.

Sometimes Alfred said he was _such a girl, Mattie_ for not being as excited to throw himself headfirst into everything like he did. Thing is – Alfred was very brave, irrational fear of ghosts aside. The bravest person Matt knew – which, fine, maybe it wasn’t saying much, cause Matthew didn’t really know THAT many people, but Alfred was very brave for any kind of standards.

And yeah, _fine_ , maybe Matthew was sometimes afraid, but he preferred to refer to himself as being _cautious_. Cautious, because Alfred wanted to open the door to a stranger in the middle of the night without getting their guardian first and call him a coward all you want, but Matthew thought whoever was on the other side of the door was bad news.

“But Al, we should really get Arthur,” he started, keeping his voice soft and low, hoping whoever was on the other side didn’t hear them. Sure, the lock was strong, the door was sturdy, but... “You don’t know who it is and it might be someone that’s…”

“They might need help!” Alfred said and that was that, there was no room for any further argument. Matthew could turn around and run up the stairs to get Arthur, but Alfred would still open the door because maybe the person on the other side needed help. And Alfred was not about to just turn around and leave them there.

So Matthew just sighed as Alfred took the key from its place on the wall and unlocked the door. They would be in so much trouble with Arthur for this, he just knew it, but Alfred was Alfred, and Alfred did what Alfred wanted, so he opened turned the knob, pulled and…and…

“Oh, Hello. Very sorry to disturb so late.” Said the sopping wet lady that was dripping all over their _welcome_ mat.

“It’s okay, miss, I heard you knocking. Are you – are you okay? Come on, come in.” Alfred grabbed her little suitcase before she had the chance to answer, ushered her in quickly so she got out of the cold. “It’s really late. Did your car break down? Did you walk a long time to reach us? Oh my god, are you hurt? You’re not hurt, are you?” He was talking fast, walking her towards the living room.

She trailed rain drops and mud through the foyer as she followed Alfred with small, uncertain steps.

“Ah, _no_. Not hurt. ” She put too much pressure on her vowels, in a way that made English sound unnatural on her tongue. She took off her long coat, seemingly not knowing what to do with it. A tiny bit lost, a little bit unsure, the look on her face snapped Matthew out of his little daze, so he walked over to the strange wet lady and held out his hands.

“Miss, you can give that to me. I’ll hang it up so it can dry.” Her features relaxed as she handed Matthew her coat.

“Thank you,” and she smiled down at him.

And Matthew…he really didn’t mean to stare at her, but… her skin looked so glowy and her hair was wet and clinging to her flushed cheeks, and she was just so _tall,_ and her blouse was wet, and she was the most…erm.. _womanly_ woman Matt had ever seen and her voice was lilting and she smiled at him and she was so, so _pretty_.

So Matthew was just staring, standing there frozen, her heavy coat soaking through the material of his pajamas, because it felt like some kind of insult to just turn his back to her. At least until Alfred yelled “ _Mattie_ ” to snap him out of it.

“Sorry!” He stammered, feeling his face burning and his heart beating wildly. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him, he hadn’t felt so embarrassed since that one time Arthur _almost_ caught him reading _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_. Arthur hadn’t said anything about it, Matthew mused as he put the coat on the coat stand, so he was safe. It was too close a call, so Matthew decided the book was too risky to pick up again.

When he returned to the living room, Alfred was sitting on the couch along with their midnight guest. She was still dripping. Matthew cringed a bit inside, could already imagine a vein above Arthur’s eye twitching when he would eventually see a big wet stain on his nice leather couch.

“So what’s your name, anyway? And how’d you get here?” Alfred was straight to the point. Not much for politeness or formality, no matter how much everyone tried to install such things in him. He was looking at her insistently, squinting as if trying to read directly into her head and pick the answers out for himself.

“Of course. So rude. I did not say my name. I am Yekaterina” She spoke slowly and softly, choosing her words carefully like Matthew did in front of his French teacher when he was asked to talk about Balzac. Her accent was something he’d never heard before.

“Nice to meet you, Ye…-Katy…erm” A pause.  Alfred tried twisting his tongue around the unfamiliar name, but Matthew knew that while his brother had many talents, an ear of languages was not amongst them. There was no chance he’d get that one right, and they both knew it. No matter, Alfred had no concept of awkwardness. “Miss. Nice to meet you, Miss. Do you have a shorter version of that? That’s my brother Mattie, I’m Al.” He held his hand out to her.

“It is nice to meet you too.” She shook Alfred’s hand, a small uncertain smile on her face. “And…ah, short? What short?” She furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Like you know, short for your name. If your name is like this long…” He motioned with his hands, spreading them widely to show length, “…how can I say it like this?” Hands came back together in front of his face, a little way apart. Alfred’s face did that thing it sometimes did when he was trying to figure out whether he liked a certain type of food or not. Lips pursed and eyebrows coming together, in this case, probably trying to gauge if she understood what he meant or if he had to draw her little stick figures. Alfred liked explaining things with little stick figures, and insisted on using them even when the situation really didn’t need call for them. Matthew was sure he did it just because it gave him the opportunity to fiddle with something under the guise of it being truly useful. It wasn’t.

 “Ah! Short name! Short name for _Yekaterina_?” Thankfully she got it. No need for stick figures.

“Yup! That’s it.” Alfred nodded enthusiastically, eyes bright. “See, like - My name if _Alfred_ but you can call me Al. And he’s Matthew” – _oh please don’t point at my face, please don’t point_ – Alfred said, while pointing at Matthew’s face. That was another conversation they needed to have, about how it was rude to point, but it was lost when Matthew felt two pairs of eyes – his brother, over-eager, and pretty wet lady, bemused and amused at the same time. “I call him _Mattie_.” The smile that Alfred was giving him was expectant, like he was waiting for him to do something.

So Matthew just raised his hand and waved at both of them, feeling his ears burning. “Hi.” Should he say something else? Should he walk up to her and shake her hand? Was she expecting him to do that? Sometimes he’d seen Arthur kiss the hands of ladies that he just met, but the thought of doing that made Matthew’s chest feel funny.

Oh, God, she smiled at him and his stomach did a little flip. She gave a little wave of her fingers. “Hello, Mattie,” but with the way she said it, the vowel was open and rounded and the _T_ pushed against her teeth. Her accent was so _foreign,_ she was so unnaturally real. Like someone made her with freshly fallen snow and ice shards for eyes. “Name…Short name…” A wistful expression passed over her face, there for a second before it disappeared. “Katya. People called me Katya.”

“So Kay…-”

“No, no. Not like that. _KAH_. ” Her mouth mimed a little exaggerated ‘o’ shape, accentuating and elongating the vowel to make her point. Alfred was following her instructions, and they both looked silly while making those faces and _AAH-ing_ and EE-ing around the unfamiliar pronunciation, but Alfred got finally got the sounds of it right.

Matthew didn’t go through the motions with them, but made a mental note on it, ran the name in his head a couple of time, bounced it around his skull. Katya, Katya, Katya.

“ _Katya._ ” Alfred repeated, slower, to get the feel of it, and again. “That’s a strange name. And your accent is funny. Where are you from?” She laughed at that, apparently amused at his brother’s curiosity. Amused was better than offended, Matthew thought. Out of the few people that visited the Kirkland household, there were some with _funny accents._ None of them had been amused when Alfred asked them about it.

“I am coming from France now.” She said, and that…didn’t…seem…right.

“Oh, cool.” Alfred found himself saying, and probably would have left it at that. Matthew, though, he found his mouth moving, with words coming out and all, before he had the chance to stop it.

“But you don’t sound French.” That made Alfred and Katya turn to him with a start. “I…erm…I speak French. My teacher is French. You don’t…pronounce things like a French person would. ”It made Matthew blush – god, this was awkward. It was moments like this when he knew he had been spending too much time in Alfred’s company to comment on something like that so freely. Alfred, who was looking at him a bit confused and Katya’s eyes widen just a fraction, before her expression turned graceful again. 

“No, is not French.” She confirmed, but didn’t elaborated further than that. Alfred wasn’t about to let her get away so easily with that.

“So? Where are you from then? You’re not from the States. Are you from the colonies? The continent? You’re very tall. Are you German? I heard German people are tall.” He squinted his eyes at her, to figure out other possible explanations. Katya winced like she tasted something unpleasant.

“Ah. No. Not from the colonies. Not from Germany. More far away. East.”  She replied vaguely, but trying to wave the whole thing off. Matthew thought – what was East, further away than Germany.

“Russia?” He suggested softly, but she heard him and the look on her face, the surprise of it, he realized he’d got it right.

“Yes, Russia.” She confirmed with a gracious smile.

 _Well, that explains the accent,_ he had time to think before he saw the frown on his twin’s face and Matt braced himself for whatever was about to come out of his brother’s mouth, because when Alfred got that look on his face it was usually followed by…

“You guys had that King guy that was killed during the Great War, right?”

_… something incredibly stupid._

Oh, _Alfred._ It wasn’t like his brother was stupid – far from it. Alfred was very smart most of the time, one could even go as far as to say that he was objectively brilliant if he managed to get more than, like…20% of his attention on a topic and try to understand it. Mathematics and physics and chemistry, and everything and anything that required numbers and formulas and calculations were easy business. While History was cool and all, he could never be bothered to pay attention to the details like titles and terminology. A Dauphin was a prince, a Shogun was a General and a Tsar was a King.

He was more concerned with other things – like how tanks were developed, how efficient trench warfare was, how Napoleon used cannons in his army and most important - how independence was won, how countries united and turned on their oppressors.

Kings and Emperors and Tsars didn’t stand a chance in front of Alfred.

Katya didn’t know anything about Alfred, though, so she had every right to think that he was an idiot.

The good news was that Katya seemed infinitely patient and polite, so she just blinked owlishly at him for a little while, probably trying to decide on something to say. Matthew took it as an opportunity to study her fluttering eyelashes and sink further into his armchair.

And it was like that, when he tried to make himself disappear within the plush fabric of the armchair, Katya turned to him with a look promised a very unsubtle change of subject in 3…2…

“I am looking for Mister Arthur Kirkland. I was told given directions to his house. Is this right?”  

 “Arthur? You’re looking for Arthur? Does he know you’re coming?” Even Alfred seemed suspicious about that. It got Matthew on alert too. So Katya wasn’t just a random lady that got lost in the storm and found her way to their house, she had been looking for it.

And by the look of her, she had come on foot. A long way on foot, judging by the state of her clothes. Her boots were caked in mud almost all the way.  Sure, she might have come by car some of the road from London, maybe her car broke down, but she already knew how to get here, why not wait out the storm there? And the drive from London was long, but not long enough to warrant arriving in the middle of the night.

And she had a suitcase with her, was she visiting? They weren’t expecting company. Arthur would have told them in advance. He would have called someone from London – if he had company over he employed a chef for the duration of the visit, hire a serving lady to get the house in order before they arrived. Not once in the six years they had lived here did Arthur have guests over unprepared.

And never such guests. Ladies came to the house only if they were accompanying their husbands, never alone. Arthur was a bachelor and had never given any sort of indication that he wanted to change that.

Matthew frowned; this whole situation didn’t sit well with him. Right about now was the time in which he should have gotten out of his chair and go fetch Arthur, he knew that. But.

He was curious. It got the better of him. They had been living with the man for six years already and not once had something so out of the ordinary happened. He had to ask.

“How do you know Arthur?”

Katya’s smile wavered, before she pinned it in place with determination.

“I do not know him. My Brother does.”

The casual statement hung heavy in the room, neither of them knowing just how respond to it. Matthew took it as his cue to get up from his seat and go summon their caretaker, but almost smacked into him on his way out.

“What the hell is going on here? Matthew, Alfred, why are you out of bed?” Like the legends of old, speak of the devil and he shall come. Arthur Kirkland was wearing a robe over his silk pajamas, and fluffy slippers. All three of them had a pair, matching fluffy slippers that Arthur had bought last year for Christmas.

Arthur was glaring, a furious blush across his cheeks that spoke of _murder_ and _disobedience_ and _you are in so much trouble I can’t even begin to explain._

Katya sprung to her feet when she saw him there, her hands running quickly through her short hair in unconscious gesture that betrayed nervousness. Arthur turned his attention to her, his eyes sharp and cold, like he could make her intruding presence wither away with him eyes only. Katya looked absolutely terrified, her shoulders folding in on herself, but to her credit she didn’t look away from him. Instead, she smiled at him. Sure, it was more of a trembling of lips than something true, but it still qualified as a smile nonetheless.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Matthew winched, wanting to crawl away and hide in a hole. Venom oozed out of Arthur’s words, it made him feel uncomfortable. Every instinct in his body told him to go hide in his room, he didn’t want to be here for whatever was about to happen. But then – he looked at Katya with her slumped shoulders and her trembling smile and knew that he couldn’t do that.

“Arthur!” Well, at least Alfred was here too. And Alfred seemed like he was completely immune to the aura of impeding danger that was swirling in thick waves around them. “This is Katya, she’s was looking for you, cuz apparently, you’re friends with her brother and…”

“ALFRED.” He shut up at that, with the way that Arthur’s voice sounded in the room. Alfred even had the decency to look a little baffled to be yelled at. “Be quiet! Take your brother and go to your rooms. Now.” Arthur didn’t take his eyes of Katya while saying any of it.

“Why?”

“Oh, bloody hell, _Alfred_. This isn’t the time to do this. I need to have a conversation with Miss Braginskaya over there. _In private.”_ Okay, yeah, sure, Matthew was convinced. He didn’t _want_ to be here, Arthur’s whole stance and attitude freaked him out and he felt like they were already in for a whole lot of trouble for tomorrow.

“Yeah, sure Arthur, but Katya needs help, you know? Maybe we could run a bath for her or something, she’s been out in the rain, and you could always talk to her tomorrow.” Alfred got up from where he was sitting on the couch and walked closer to Arthur, placed himself right in front of Katya in the process. Matthew had to wonder if it was a conscious gesture on his part, or if it was just Alfred-instinct to put himself in front of a damsel in distress and try to shield her.

Which was hilarious, because Alfred was a tall fourteen-year-old, but nowhere near tall enough to shield Katya from Arthur’s eyes.

“She’s not staying that long Alfred.” He said seriously, looking at Alfred like he was crazy for suggesting something like that. “You’re no staying that long. You’re not staying at all. I am going to get dressed and I’m taking you to London.”

“ARHTUR, NO.” Alfred looked horrified. Matthew felt a little queasy, trying to make sense of this weird night. He didn’t know Arthur as being heartless or cruel, or the type that would throw a woman out in the rain. That wasn’t _gentleman_ behavior.

“Mister Kirkland. Please.” Katya started, softly and slowly and like she knew how to say because she had prepared it in advance. “I come a long, long way to see you. I did not want to come to you, but there was no one else left.” Her voice caught on the last word, and it looked like it made him soften just a bit.

“What you mean, there’s no one left? Go to Istanbul or Vienna. Hell, go to Paris if you want to be rebellious. Don’t come to me, I don’t want to have anything to do with your brother.” Arthur sighed. At least he wasn’t yelling anymore, but his voice was still hard and unyielding. “While I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice and well-mannered Lady, general understanding is that Ivan rarely, if ever, let’s you out of his sight. I am inclined to believe this has not changed much in the years that have passed. I _do not_ want him looking for you and finding you in _my house_.”

“Mister Kirkland, please. Listen. Istanbul, Athena, Vienna. _Da,_ go there and they turn me away. Could not stay.” She shook her head sadly. It was clear she was upset, her accent was thicker now as she was trying to keep her voice steady. “Went to Paris to meet Francis, but could not stay. Francis wanted to help me, but he could not.” The tears had slowly gathered in her eyes while she had been talking, and they finally spilled at that, a small sob escaping her.

Alfred turned to her with his eyes huge, like he had no idea how to deal with it. He looked frantically between Katya’s teary face, and Arthur, torn between consoling her and glaring at him. Matthew knew his brother well enough to know that he probably thought this was all Arthur’s fault, if he had been more understanding and willing help her from the start, Katya wouldn’t be crying in the first place.

“Katya, Katya, come on, don’t cry, don’t cry” It was Alfred’s Big Brother Voice, which he had used all the time when they had been at the orphanage. Alfred’s Big Brother Voice, it was less of the consoling and soft variety, more like pitched and pleading and determined. Less ‘ _there there, I’m here_ ’, more ‘ _don’t cry, I’ll fix it_ ’. But in this case, he didn’t understand what he had to fix beyond Make Sure Arthur Doesn’t Throw Her Out of The House, so he was glaring daggers at their caretaker while he awkwardly patted Katya’s back.

Arthur himself seemed just as lost on how to deal with this. You didn’t have to be extremely gifted in reading people to understand that Arthur wasn’t the person you went to for comfort while crying. So Matthew did what the other two didn’t think to do, reached for the closest drawer where he knew the napkins for dinner were, pulled one out and rushed to Katya’s side.

He didn’t say anything while he held the small piece of cloth out to her, but she looked at him with her red eyes and her lashes heavy with tears. She took the napkin from him and clutched it to her chest, while she tried to get her breathing under control. Wiped her tears. Closed her eyes and took another deep breath. When she looked at him after that, she seemed better, more composed. Still pretty.

“ _Spasibo”_ Matthew didn’t have to understand the word to know what it meant, the gratitude in her voice making his heart ache.

“I haven't spoken to Francis in years, you know? I knew things were hard for him, but I had no idea how bad it was.” Arthur’s voice was finally mellow, apologetic while he approached. “Please sit down.” He motioned to the couch again and Katya took her place from before, where a big water stain had already turned the leather form soft beige to mud brown.

“Does this mean you’ll let her stay?”

“Alfred, goddamnit!” Arthur said, exasperated while sitting down on the armchair. Matthew sighed, that had been his spot. He’d just have to stand. That way it would be easier to get something if need for it arose. “She was sobbing a minute ago. You just throw out a crying woman!”

“But one that’s not crying is okay?” Alfred’s sense of righteousness shined brightly on his face.

“Is fine, Alfred.  Mister Kirkland is willing to listen, da?” Katya looked at Arthur hopefully, Alfred expectantly, until the Englishman nodded. Yes, he was willing to listen if it meant she wouldn’t start crying again. “I met Francis in Paris and he was really very kind to me. Offered me clothes and food, told me how to get to London. He gave me a little money too, but he does not have much anymore. War was hard. Said, maybe in a few years, he’d have more options, would be safer to help me. Not now. He sent me here.”

“To me.”

“Yes.”

“For what? Sanctuary? Really? Francis?” Chuckled at the thought of it and got a far off look in his eyes, like he was remembering something long passed. It went away as fast as it appeared, though it left him looking more approachable. “You know, Miss Braginskaya, it's been a very long time since I last spoke to Francis. It's been an even longer time since I’ve heard someone refer to him as being kind.”

Katya turned her eyes away from him, like she didn't want to face him. Judging by the look on concentration on her face, she was looking for the proper words to say whatever it was she had to say.

“He sent me to you, said you might want to help me. Said you had no reason to be… _afraid._ ” The last word was barely a whisper, but they all heard it and it just stood there in the air between them. “ _Not afraid, da?_ ”

Like a switch clicked inside her, she looked Arthur straight in the eye and squared her shoulders before going on. Matthew suddenly thought she looked much older, the lines of her face harder.

“Miss Braginskaya, I…” She didn’t let Arthur continue because she started talking.

“Mister Kirkland. I am here to ask for sanctuary. I have nothing to banter with. No money, no gold, but I am good worker. I can help keep your house clean, your children fed,” she looked at Alfred and then at Matthew, gave them smiles so sweet and honest, something Matthew never saw on any of the ladies that came to the orphanage, “I have knowledge. I can teach them,” she made a pause, made eye contact with Arthur again, “I can teach you, too. There are things you want to know, yes? All I ask for is shelter.”

Matthew held his breath, because he didn’t really understand what exactly she was offering, what she was asking for in return. He thought that her words held a different meaning for Arthur, because he seemed to consider it, consider her like he was seeing her properly for the first time that night. Whatever it was, apparently it meant something more than what it was at face value. Arthur’s eyebrows frowned, and he asked,

“What are you running from, Yekaterina Braginskaya?”

“ _No_ , not running.” Katya shook her head, her hair making a wet sound when it connected to her cheeks.

“ _Hiding_ , then.” He corrected himself, “What are you hiding from? Your brother?”

“ _Vanya_ would never hurt me.” Katya said as a form of response, her voice low and her gaze falling to her lap, where she was clutching the napkin tightly. Her fingers were going white from the pressure. Arthur snorted.

“Of course he wouldn’t” The dismissive tone of his voice and the eye-roll that accompanied it were just as telling as his words. He didn’t believe her. He got up from his chair and started pacing around the room.

“Arthur, please…” That was Alfred. Matthew was sure that his twin understood even less than he did about the kind of conversation that was going on between Katya and Arthur, about the kind of conversation they were having _beneath_ the words that were said. However, Alfred understood everything about someone needing help, understood it so well he wasn’t above pleading with Arthur on Katya’s behalf, “You can’t let her leave like this. You need to help her. _Please._ ”

And maybe that did it, because Alfred rarely asked for anything, Alfred just demanded things. Maybe that was what made Arthur decide what to do. Maybe it was just his gentlemanly side finally making an appearance now that his anger had cooled down, that side of him that couldn’t throw a sad woman out. Maybe it was the fact that, underneath the emotional repression and the occasional frosty demeanor, Arthur Kirkland did, in fact, have a heart.

So he sighed. He walked over to the couch where Katya was sitting with Alfred at her side, and bent over a little so he could be at eye level with her. Closer to her face than it was proper, but nothing on his face suggested any form of _improper_ interest. Curiosity, yes, he was studying her, looking for a lie, Matthew though, but there was nothing but sincerity there.

“Never thought I’d see the day in which Ivan Braginsky’s sister would come to me asking for sanctuary.” They kept saying that, _what did it mean?_ It was such a strange word to use, wasn’t it? “Fine. If I’m your only option, _fine_. I won’t deny you, Yekaterina Braginskaya. Your offering has been accepted, I grant you sanctuary. You are under my protection.”

Matthew breathed out a sigh a relief. Alfred ran over to hug Arthur, saying “ _I knew you had it in you to be hero, Artie_ ” and Katya herself was sitting there dumbfounded, looking unable to believe what had just happened. When she snapped out of her daze, her gaze met Matthew’s and she looked so relieved and the lines of her face softer, and she was even _prettier._ It made him blush and look away. Then blush even harder at the thought that she’d be living in their house in the near future, right? That’s what it meant, right? Oh my god, they would have a woman – a soft, glowy, pretty, _tall and womanly_ woman - living with them.

 It was scary and exciting at the same time.

Katya got up from the couch and went to Arthur. She didn’t make a move to hug him, but she leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“ _Spasibo_ , Mister Kirkland. Thank you for your kindness.”

Arthur looked at her silently, looked her up and down – but cautiously and with scientific interest, like she was a new exciting animal he had discovered, still trying to gauge whether she was dangerous or not. There was something between the two of them, a tentative agreement that went beyond mere kindness. Matthew couldn’t help but think, while he was looking at Arthur, that kindness didn’t even anything to do with it.

“Welcome to England, Miss Braginskaya. ” He finally said, with careful consideration.

Outside, lightning turned the sky white. Thunder boomed.

Somehow, Matthew felt something much more grand and epic had just happened before his eyes.

 

Oh well.

 

* * *

 

So that’s how it all started.

It started with a girl, on a dark and stormy night.

She came upon a big, empty house, were twin boys opened the door for her.

She was running and hiding from an unspoken threat.

The master of the house, moved by her story, decided to take her in.

They lived happily ever…-

Wait.

No.  


It’s really more complicated than that.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been...hmmm. 6 years since I actively sat down to write something with a plot, and with the intention of finishing it. This particular story idea is probably older than that, but I decided to come back to it now because I think at this point, I might have the writing skillz to actually pull it off and not get bored lost in it half-way. For the life of me, I never expected that after so many years, this would be the fandom I'd find myself pulled into again. 
> 
> At some point in the past few months, after binge watching too many hours of historical documentaries, reading several books on the Cold War and Russian History, I decided to introduce my significant other to Hetalia. He was charmed and I found myself saying - YOLO BITCH, LET'S DO THIS. So here I am, rediscovering the joys of fanfiction and writing for pleasure.


	2. Like Sleeping Beauty - but Russian

 

It was still dark outside when Alfred woke up.

Not _dark_ -dark, but that grey-blue kinda dark that meant the sun was starting to raise, thought it wasn’t there yet. Earlier than he was used to, anyway. Normally, this would mean it was just about time to check on Mattie and then go back to sleep for a couple of more hours, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not today, he was too excited to go back to sleep.

They had a _guest_. More than that, they had _a lady guest_.

He could hardly believe it. _Oh my god_ , there was a lady in their house, that was so exciting!

After Katya’s midnight arrival two nights ago, he couldn’t sleep at all. Arthur had ushered them into their respective rooms while he helped her settle into a room, but Alfred couldn’t just be expected to sit there. He had sneaked into Mattie’s room, and they both sat up in bed and listened intensely. Arthur had taken Katya to the room right next to Mattie’s, which meant the two of them were sharing a wall and it made it the perfect place to listen in on what was happening. Alfred’s own room was just across from Mattie’s which didn’t give him a lot of spying possibilities.

_Spying_ wasn’t a good word, though, it just sounded so negative. He preferred gathering information.

So him and Mattie had stayed awake for the whole night, sitting with their knees on the bed, pressed across the headboard and listening in on the soft conversation Katya and Arthur were having on the other side of the wall. It was basically impossible to hear anything – the walls were thick and their voices were low, so the only thing they heard were bumps and movement, a low murmur of voices, but not discernible words exchanged between them.

They had heard it when the door opened and shut back, a sign that Arthur had left her alone for the rest of the night. They kept themselves pressed to the wall for a little longer. Alfred tried to imagine Katya on the other side of the wall, walking through the room and touching things. The furniture was old, he knew. Heavy and well made, yes, but aged and dark. She probably wouldn’t like it much – she seemed like a nice lady, with a nice smile and soft eyes, the kind that kept a warm house with a lot of flowers that smelled of cookies and pie.

Did she know how to make pie? The ladies that came to visit with their husbands weren’t the kind to make pie, more like had their servants make it for them. Arthur had this little old lady that came in cooked for them every day, but she never let them anywhere near the kitchen and it…like…wasn’t the same thing, right? She was still paid by Arthur to do it. And the food wasn’t bad, but pie was never on the menu.

Would Katya bake him pie if he asked for it?

“Hey Alfie?” He could already imagine steaming apple pie, and cherry pie, and strawberry. Arthur had a _lot_ strawberry shrubs in the garden, and they were the best thing ever. The only way they could get better would be if they were to be put inside pie.

“Alfie, how do you think she got here?” Mattie’s soft voice broke through his thought process. _Huh_. Now he was hungry, but there was probably nothing downstairs that even vaguely resembled strawberry pie. And to make matters worse, it was October, the strawberries were long gone.

“I dunno. I guess the same way everyone gets here. She walked? Really brave of her to do in the rain, right? Though I guess it would have been scarier to sit out in the rain if her car broke down. Can you imagine walking through the rain so much? What if something got her? Like a wolf or a bear or something.”

He’d never seen a bear around here before, or a wolf, but there had to be some. The only thing he ever saw were sheep and horses. Sheep probably weren’t really scary, not even for a lady, but horses could be scary if they were coming at you in the night.

Do horses come out at night?

“No, Alfie. I mean – Russia is a long way away, you know. I mean, why do you think she came here? She said she was in France before, and all those other places and they all sent her away, right? Why do you think they did that?”

Mattie’s face was doing that thing, with his brows all pinched up and his bottom lip between his teeth, like the was really trying very hard to figure out some the value of X. Alfred thought he was concentrating too hard, so he poked his forehead right where it creased, tapped the same spot a couple of times until his brother gently slapped it away.

“Al, I’m serious. Cut it out. Do you think it’s weird?”

“Yeah, sure. But she probably has her reasons.” He shrugged. Mattie was always overthinking stuff.

“But did you see how Arthur reacted when he talked about her brother? Why is that? Have you ever seen him go off like that on someone?”

Well…come to think of it. No, not really.

Arthur was very proper and all that, very British and polite. But there were a lot of reasons that Arthur might have reacted like that. Maybe her brother was a really nasty guy – though he couldn’t imagine a nice lady like Katya having anyone nasty in her family. Nastiness was something…in your veins. Niceness too. As far as Alfred saw it, if you were nice, chances were that your family was too, right? _Genetics_.

That sounded just about right. He told Mattie exactly that, and his twin rolled his eyes and sighed like an old man.

“Al, that’s not how genetics work! You should know this!”

“Well, arguably, it really does depend on what side of the whole nature vs nurture debate you want to be on. For example, do you think Napoleon was like, born to rule and set out to make it happen or do you think it was the circumstances of the French Revolution that set the whole thing in motion?”

If you considered nature as being character traits that were in your blood, did that mean that him and Mattie were fundamentally different people even though they were twins? Or were they the same and because Alfred was older than him, he was able to tap into his awesome reserve sooner? Did Mattie have a secret awesomeness reserve that was just waiting there to be tapped, or did Alfred get the most of it?

Mattie had other cool things about him, like how he was able to speak perfect French and memorize absolutely everything and remember it all the time. That seemed exhausting, though, his brother sure had to have a lot of stuff crammed into his head.

“Al, that’s really not the point. Were you even paying attention? She looked like she was so scared when Arthur was talking about her brother.”

_Yeah_ , Alfred thought that the inside of his brother’s head was like the library down stairs, all full of shelves and information, rows and rows of details about absolutely everything in there. But – unlike Arthur’s library, Mattie knew where everything was, and he knew exactly where to look for it when needed.

“Maybe they had a fight before? Maybe they don’t get along?” No, not possible, he’d already established that Katya was nice and sweet and couldn’t possible get into a fight. Also – who got into a fight with their brother ran away to another country? He tried to imagine being so upset with Mattie that he wanted to leave the country and shuddered at the thought. No, couldn’t be that. “Maybe she had to leave because of…reasons? Didn’t they have that big revolution thing going on there where they started killing nobles and rich folks?” Alfred’s eyes widened at the thought, “Oh my god, Mattie, what if she’s like…I dunno, a princess of something? What if she’s a runaway princess that needs help?”

A runaway princess! And maybe her brother was like an exiled prince that had to go into hiding and plan to restore the family title or something. Did Alfred save a princess? Did that make him a knight? Well, technically, you had to be granted the title of knight and could princesses even do that? He could be a knight. That sounded cool. He’d be a Russian knight, though. How did that work? Would he get a uniform and cool looking sword?

“You know, Mattie, if she makes me a knight, I’ll let you look at my sword and keep it with you when I don’t need it.” He said with a grin. That sounded like a good plan.

“Alfred, what are you even talking about it? I’m being serious here!”

“Me too!” He protested. There were serious things he wanted to ask. “Do Russians have knights, though?”

“Alfred, that’s really not what I was talking about. And I don’t think she’s a princess or anything. Plus, even if she were, Russia doesn’t have any nobility anymore, do they?”

“But _exiled_ nobility, Mattie.”

“So not the point, Alfie.”

Oh, but if she was an exiled princess, she probably didn’t know how to make pie, right?

That made Alfred slightly sad, but he thought that the best way to settle this whole dilemma was to ask her next morning.

So in the morning, when they went downstairs for breakfast, Alfred was already buzzing with all the questions he wanted to ask Katya. It was really disappointing not see her in the kitchen. It was just Arthur sitting at the table, like every other morning so far. They always had breakfast together, when it was just the three of them, but he really was expecting her to be there too.

“Morning Arthur. Where’s Katya? Is she coming down for breakfast?” Arthur looked up at the two of them, folded his newspaper and set it on the table.

“No, I don’t think she will be coming down today. I think she would much rather spend the day resting.” Mattie turned his face to Alfred, looking at him all too seriously for early morning, and Alfred wasn’t really sure what was up with him. “You two are going to let her rest, you hear? Especially you, Alfred, leave the girl alone for now.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll let her sleep and all that.” Alfred grabbed a scone of the platter in front of him, broke it in half and spooned a dollop of jam on it. Hmm, he was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t get to the bottom of the whole Russian Monarchy dilemma, but there was time, right? “Hey Artie, how long will she be staying here, anyways?”

Arthur looked as he was thinking about how to answer that. Across the table, Mattie was munching on his own scone, looking between the two of them. Mattie always ate like he talked – chewed slowly and kept his attention focused on his scone, until he finished.

“She’ll be here for a while. I don’t know how much – I told her she can take as much time as she needs, so for the time being, Katya is our guest. Indefinitely.” Arthur said in the end. “If you boys don’t feel comfortable with her here, though, we can always tell her to leave.”

Alfred thought that was a stupid thing to say, because no way in hell did Alfred save her from the rain only to tell Arthur that she wasn’t welcome.

_Of course_ she was welcome, of course she had to stay, that’s what you did after you saved someone. You took them in, gave them food and let them rest. Then maybe when they felt better, they would be nice enough to repay you with some pie. That seemed reasonable enough. Or knighthood. Both were equally acceptable, but when he really thought about it….

Ugh….

Well.

He supposed that knighthood was something that only Alfred could use, and that didn’t seem 100% fair now that he thought about it. Sure, it was all cool and shiny, and last night he had been so excited about the possibility of having a big sword, but now that he got over that, he could really think about it. The possibility of pie was much more tempting, mainly because he could share pie with Mattie and have it multiple times, and knighthood was just selfish, you know?

“Katya seems nice.” That was Mattie’s soft voice, breaking his train of thought from the other side of the table. His cheeks had red splotches on them, the tips of his ears were pink and he was starting intensely at the jam jar in front of him. Huh. Was Mattie coming down with a something?

“Yes, Miss Braginskaya is very nice, from what I know of her. I hope you boys will be comfortable with her, as I was thinking that she might take over some of your lessons in the future.” Oh _awesome_ , did that mean no more Dickens? Alfred knew how much Arthur insisted they read Dickens, but god he hated it. Nothing happened.

He hoped that if some of their lessons would start being with Katya and not with Arthur, he’d actually get the chance to read about interesting stuff. Though there was probably nothing to be done against the French teacher that came over 2 times a week for their language lessons. Alfred hated French, but Mattie was so fond of it that he couldn’t really complain about it. Much.

When he heard that Katya might responsible for some of their lessons in the future, Mattie made this squeaky sound, like he choked on the air of the room.

“Mattie, you okay?”

“Fine!” He literally squeaked this time, like a hiccup, and the red splotches on his cheeks took over his face completely. He got bright tomato red and it kinda worried Alfred.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re all red. You got a fever or something?”

“ALFRED! Shut up! I’m fine.”

Alfred was taken aback by Mattie’s reaction. Usually he only got so hissy when he was super embarrassed about something, like that time he found this book that his brother stashed in the nightside near his bed. Mattie got bright red about it, snatched it from his hands and walked out of the room with it. Alfred still wasn’t sure what that was all about, who got so weird about books anyway? Arthur, on the other hand, seemed to find it really funny because he chuckled.

Alfred was a bit confused about that, Arthur was rarely amused about anything. It was like, an _English_ thing, or something, be as stone faced as possible and never, ever smile. Giggles were forbidden, but chuckling was occasionally permitted. Rarely. Best avoid it all together, though. So even if he didn’t really understand what triggered it, Alfred still felt a swell of pride in his chest, because he liked to think it was his and Mattie’s influence on Arthur that made him a bit less of a stuck-up.

“Oh, hey, Artie. I meant to ask. What’s the deal with Katya, though? See, I have this theory that she and her brother are like…royalty or something, and they’re on the run….”

“Alfred!”

“…but then, Mattie said he doesn’t think so, also that Russia doesn’t work like that anymore, with royalty and stuff. So I was thinking I should ask her about it, but she’s not here….”

“ALFRED!” Really, why was Mattie trying to stop him? He was curious about this stuff too! And there was something else they were talking about…oh, right!

“…Also you got really mad about her brother. What’s the deal with that, anyway?” He finished with a smile.

Arthur was looking at him as if he had grown another head sometimes mid-sentence, but Alfred was used to getting that look. It was a funny look. Arthur blinked owlishly, set down the tea cup that had frozen mid-way up to his mouth. Mattie kicked him under the table, and Alfred promptly gave him the evil eye.

“Why’d you do that?” Mattie didn’t answer, just kept looking all tomato-y as he rolled his eyes, like Alfred was lost cause. It wasn’t fair – he was just asking about what they had been talking a night before.

See, this was the problem with Mattie. He was always so… _ugh_. He never wanted to anger anyone – not Arthur, not the guests, not the people at the orphanage or the other kids. He never said anything to anyone, he only said it to Alfred. And what was Alfred supposed to do? He couldn’t just sit around and let Mattie stew in it, whatever it was.

So Alfred went and asked people about the stuff that Mattie was curious about, and Alfred went and punched people that gave Mattie a hard time, and Alfred asked for chicken noodle soup for dinner even though he wanted meatloaf– because Mattie told him he wanted chicken noodle soup, but they both knew that _he_ wasn’t going to ask for it.

He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing about it – even it Mattie said it didn’t matter and he didn’t want Alfred to say anything to anyone – he knew he couldn’t live with himself to just let stuff hang in there. But did Mattie really have to kick him in the shin under the table every time an issue came up during breakfast, dinner or lunch? During lesson time? Alfred’s shins were constantly bruised.

“Finish your breakfast, Alfred. We won’t be talking about this.”

“But Arthur!”

“No buts, dear. Finish your breakfast, Alfred. You boys still have work for the day. We’re going to have a lesson about the American Civil War today.”

Oh, _cool_. At least it was history day. History day was better than literature day, but not as nice as Physics. Philosophy was the worst, though.

Mattie continued to be sulky while they finished their breakfast, but it seemed to have passed by the time they were gathering dishes and setting them in the sink. They went about their usual routine – Alfred washing and Mattie drying, Arthur putting all of them away after they had finished.

There was nothing remarkable about their day after that. The spent more hours than necessary in the library with Arthur and tried to focus on their work. It was really hard, though – because you see, the library was downstairs and right above it, you had Mattie’s room. And Katya’s room now. So Alfred was straining his ears to see if he could catch any sort of movement coming from upstairs, to see if she was awake, moving around, getting about. He had no luck, didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, just the regular sounds of an old house settling.

He knew Mattie was listening, too, whenever Arthur wasn’t paying attention he could see that his brother’s eyes got a little too focused, sometimes even going as far as to lean his head back towards the ceiling, like that would help him hear better. He probably didn’t have any more luck with listening than Alfred did. They stopped for lunch at some point, but it was still just the three of them.

“Is Katya not hungry? Has she eaten anything since she got here?” Alfred asked. He couldn’t imagine going without breakfast! And then skipping lunch, too? He was sure he would have heard it if she went to the kitchen to herself some food – you had to pass in front of the library if you wanted to get to the kitchen, and he was so used to silence of the place that if someone walked past the closed doors of the library, surely he would have heard her.

“I could…maybe…erm…” Mattie started saying something, but it was all stutter-y and his cheeks were getting red again. So weird, his brother was definitely coming down with a cold. “Do you think we should check on her?” He finally asked Arthur, after a long pause.

“No, it’s quite alright. I’m going to check to see if she’s doing well after you boys finish your lunch.” So that was that. Arthur went to check on her as they were washing the dishes but when he came back, he didn’t say anything about her at all. Alfred asked, but he was just told his that Katya was resting.

A whole day passed in which him and Mattie were TRYING to hear for things – anything. Movement, voices, whispering, footsteps, but there was absolutely nothing. Like Katya didn’t exist in the house with them at all. It got him so nervous, was this how it was always going to be like? Tip toeing around her closed door and straining their ears against her wall? He sighed.

And Alfred had been so excited to finally, finally, finally have someone else with them here!

“Do you think she’s really been sleeping this whole time?”

At bedtime, he had gone to his own room to change into pajamas, but then he was right back to Mattie’s bedroom, trying to make sense of their mystery guest. Mattie shrugged and looked away. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, with a pillow clutched to his chest.

“Maybe. Girls sleep a lot, right? She’s probably really, really tired, so she’s resting from her trip.” Alfred huffed and threw himself on the bed. Mattie’s bed looked exactly the same as his, but Alfred thought it was definitely fluffier.

“How do you know that girls sleep more?”

“I read about it. And it’s all the girls in the stories, right? They all sleep a lot. Like Sleeping Beauty.” Mattie raised his pillow to his face and looked like he tried to smother himself with it. Alfred frowned.

“Do you think Russians have their own Sleeping Beauty? I mean – I know there’s one in Germany, and Italy and France. There has to be one in Russia too. ” Mattie raised his face from the pillow and looked at Alfred, but didn’t really look at him. He got that look to his face like he was looking through his mind-library.

“I have no idea. It’s not like I ever asked myself that.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” Russia was far away, he never thought about things that were so far away.

Okay, so he thought about America sometimes, but that didn’t really count. They’d been born there, after all, and he thought about it…Sure, it had been shitty over there, him and Mattie at the orphanage. But it hadn’t been _all_ that bad, right? They’d had each other, so that counted for something. And Alfred had punched anyone that gave them a hard time. He’d never ever ever want to go back to it, but maybe he’d like to go back there to visit sometimes.

And Arthur told him about this really cool general guy in Japan once, that named himself Lord Commander of absolutely everything Japanese. He had this army of knights, only they weren’t really knights because they didn’t have a chivalry code. They had their own weird bush code _. Bush knights_? Bush Knights. The thought made Alfred giggle.

“What?” Mattie asked, voice slightly annoyed like he was expecting something stupid, but he had to ask anyway.

“Bush Knights, Mattie.”

 “What?” There was more of a question there this time, like he really didn’t follow whatever it was Alfred was talking about.

“You know. Bush Knights, those Japanese knights, that aren’t really knights, cause they have a bush code and not a chivalry code?”

“You mean _Samurai_ , Al? _Bushido_ code?” Sometimes Mattie really did sound like he was Arthur’s biological son, not just adopted. He had the perfect Arthur voice.

“Those sound like made up words, Mattie.” Alfred said with an eye roll.

“That’s because it’s _Japanese_ , Alfie.”

“Whatever”

Mattie rolled his eyes. He got up and turned the nightside lamp, then he got into bed and snuggled into the blankets. Alfred got into bed too and found himself staring at the ceiling for a while. He couldn’t just go to sleep, though he did feel pretty tired.

 “Hey Mattie?”

There was a groan from the pile of blankets besides him.

“What is it?”

“Do you know anything about Russia?” Apart from it being really big, really cold and really far away – and having that one king that was recently killed – Alfred couldn’t really think about anything else. Mattie was quiet besides him, no doubt thinking about something to tell him.

“There’s a lot of things about it, you know. I liked that books I read – _Anna Karenina_ and _Crime and Punishment_. You would know too, but you said it was too boring.” Mattie said, vaguely accusing. Though he should know Alfred better than that – the moment that lady started talking about her husband’s ears, it was lost to him and he knew better than to try after that.

“Come on, Mattie, not something like that. Tell me something cool.”

His brother sighed again and turned to Alfred. He was frowning a bit, but he didn’t berate Alfred further.

“Do you promise to go sleep if I tell you something cool? I’m really tired, Al, I want to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“Cross my heart.”

Mattie didn’t seem to convinced about Alfred’s promise.

“Russia is really up North, right? Parts of it are North of the Arctic Circle, actually. So, during the summer, you have places over there were the sun never really sets.” 

“Like…it’s day all the time?”

“Not really day, more like….twilight, I guess. It’s called midnight sun.”

“That’s…really cool, Mattie.” He didn’t get another response from his brother, he just turned around and tried going to bed.

Alfred closed his eyes and focused really, really hard on falling asleep. He thought of a place that was stuck in constant twilight, and when he woke up next morning, he was greeted with grey-blue-violet sky that seemed taken straight from his dream.  He just had a good sorta feeling. He shook Mattie out of his sleep and jumped out of bed himself.

“Al, what is it?” Mattie grumbled, sitting up in bed, while Alfred went to his clothes and started pulling out clothes for both of them. Yeah, he had his own clothes in his own closet in his own room, but him and Mattie were about the same size anyway and he wasn’t about to waste time by going to his room first.

“We’re getting out of bed. Come on, get dressed.” He threw clothes for his brother on the bed while and started dressing himself quickly.

“Alfred, it’s too early for this. Get back to bed, sleep. We still have time before we need to get up.” His twin really didn’t want to comply, but Alfred wasn’t just about to let him get back to sleep. They had stuff to do, and Alfred already felt like he had bees in his stomach, but in a good way.

“Come on, Mattie. Get dressed. Let’s go downstairs. You’re already awake, aren’t you? No point in wasting the morning in bed.”

“It’s not even properly morning yet, Alfie!” He grumbled, but he pushed the comforter aside and got out of bed. He took of his pajamas slowly and then started dressing himself with all the energy and excitement of a sixty year old man with arthritis.

“ _Technically_ , Mattie, anything that’s after midnight is already morning, right?” Alfred gave him a grin while Mattie gave him a sleepy glare. Sure, Mattie played the correction game with him all the damn time, but Alfred was more than capable of doing the whole “technically” thing with him too.  Hah!

He was already out the door by the time that Mattie was dragging his feet through the room to get his slippers. Slippers. Bleah. Arthur had a thing for slippers and socks, and Matthew had taken to it gladly, cuz his brother was way too much of an old man with old man habits, but socks and slippers were the worst. Alfred’s toes were not meant to be constricted all the time.

He almost ran down the stairs, one ear trained behind him to listen for this brother’s shuffling, just to make sure he too was following. Must be really sleepy, he hadn’t started yelling after him to wait up yet. Alfred considered that a victory. Sleepy Mattie was less likely to complain, if you got over the initial resistance of getting him to wake up in the first place.

At the foot of the stairs, he turned to the hallway on the left. He walked purposefully – passed the locked door of Arthur’s study on the right and the door to the library on the left, and straight ahead – the double doors that you had to push open to get to into the kitchen. He stood in front of them until he heard Mattie stop right behind him. Alfred looked over his shoulder at his brother and gave him a grin. He pushed the doors open with a bit more force than was necessary, for dramatic effect.

It smelled like cinnamon.

The kitchen smelled like cinnamon, and it was delicious. Like cinnamon and something sweet, cinnamon sugar that you put on donuts, and like something was frying, and there was a sizzling sound, like when you fried eggs or poured batter into a hot skillet. And humming, a humming little song that kept going while he and Mattie stood there at the entrance.

Katya was by the stove, flipping a really thin pancake. She turned her head to them and gave them a bright smile.

“Good morning,” she said. The early morning light was a bit brighter now, and warmer. The kitchen looked warm and was warm and smelled warm. “Come in, come in. Do not be…erm…” She stopped whatever it was she meant to say, probably looking for the word she wanted to use. Alfred didn’t really wait for whatever she had to say, it’s not like he needed more of an invitation than that.

“Hey Katya. Good morning to you too. What are you cooking there? It smells nice.” He went straight to the stove to look at whatever it was she was doing. Yup, pancakes, the really thin kind that you rolled up with jam. But there was also a pot of something that was steaming and that’s what smelled like cinnamon. Porridge?

So – not a princess. Princesses didn’t cook. So that theory wasn’t going to get him anywhere, but it was okay because he already decided that he’d rather have pies instead of a being a Bush knight.

Mattie came in really slowly, and sat down at the table without saying anything. Alfred turned to his brother to see why he was so quiet, and found him all blushy and red again, though he was trying to keep his eyes firmly on the table.

“What did you want to say?” Mattie asked softly, while his eyes darted up for a second to look at Katya and then settling right back to stare holes into the table top. “Before, I mean. You stopped.”

“Ah. I do not knowing… _robkiy_ ” she said the word with the that nasal pronunciation of hers, “It is…” her brows furrowed as she concentrated. Alfred wasn’t really paying attention, he was thinking about how mad Arthur would be if he took a bowl of whatever that was before he came downstairs. He was never allowed in the kitchen when someone was cooking, and it was a damn shame because by the time he got there to eat, you never really got all the smells.

Mattie, though, his eyes were going back and forth between starting at the table and blinking at Katya. Mattie always paid attention to whoever was talking in a room, and it meant that Alfred didn’t have to focus that much on whatever was happening. If he missed something, Mattie was sure to tell him afterwards anyway.

“ _Peureux? Timide_? ” She offered after a while, and ugh, Alfred recognized that pronunciation.

“Shy.” Matthew offered her, _“c’est le mot que tu cherchez_.” Alfred rolled his eyes, but dutifully kept his mouth shut. Katya said she was coming from France, so it made sense that she knew it, and with his brother announcing that he spoke French the other night – sure, it made sense that if she didn’t know an English equivalent she’d go for something else in a language they both knew. But _ugh_ , did Alfred hate French and how smug Mattie got about it sometimes.

“Thank you. Please say again?” she said with a gracious smile. Mattie repeated the word, and she tested the way it rolled in her mouth. “ _Mon anglais n'est pas aussi bon que mon Français_ ” The words slipped easier on her tongue than English did, and even Alfred could tell that her pronunciation was spot on. “I will learn fast.” She added, fixing her gaze to the floor, like she was really embarrassed about it. Alfred and Mattie exchanged a look, and he knew they were both pretty much thinking the same thing. The whole twin business was cool like that, mutual understanding and all.

“We could help you, you know. Whenever you don’t know something, you can just ask. And we can like…I dunno. You can walk around and point at stuff that you don’t know the name of, and we can tell you how it’s called”

Their French teacher did something like that when they started learning, pointed at a lot stuff, said how it was called in French and expected them to repeat it until they got it right. Mattie usually got it right the first time, Alfred…not really.

Katya seemed to consider what he said. Meanwhile, Mattie didn’t randomly say ‘Alfred’ in a disapproving tone, so that was something. Actually, now that he looked at his brother, he could see that he was even a bit approving of the whole thing, so Alfred was very happy that his suggestion had been well received.

Katya didn’t say anything, but she took a jar off the shelf above the stove and opened it. She pulled out a little bark of cinnamon and held it out for them to see, pointing at it. “Oh, cinnamon.” Alfred supplied helpfully. And cloves and nutmeg. Then they moved to parsley and thyme and garlic, that was hanging in dried up bunches over the counter.

Katya pointed at stuff, Alfred supplied her with the word, Mattie corrected her pronunciation. She tried asking for clarifications in English most of the time, but she fell back on French if she couldn’t express herself properly. Mattie was altogether too pleased about having to put his French to use, and Alfred was already having glimpse into living life with two Francophiles next to him. Ugh.

Worst thing was, he couldn’t fault Mattie for being excited about finally getting to speak with someone in French. Still – it was something he couldn’t share with his brother and Katya could. He’d never even thought about French being something that got Mattie excited. And there were things Alfred liked that made Mattie couldn’t see the point of. Like horseback riding, which was something he rarely got to do, but it was still cool. Arthur took them bow-hunting sometimes in the nearby forest. Alfred loved it, but Mattie dreaded the trips so the last three times he had excused himself from the activity all together. So yeah. There were things he couldn’t share with Mattie, even though he would have liked too.

Mattie asked her where she learned how to speak French so well. Katya looked away for a second before answering him.

“My brother teach me French.” She explained and then was quiet for a second. Offered no further explanations on the topic.

Hmm.

_Brother_.

Brother that Arthur didn’t like and didn’t want to talk about. Brother that was, probably, most likely, not exiled nobility.

Alfred and Mattie shared another look – Alfred wanted to ask her about her brother and pry some information from her. Mattie probably saw the intent there, so he shook his head discreetly.

_Need a plan. Will work on it_. That’s what the look said. Fine – Alfred was okay to follow his brother’s leads when it came the sneaky stuff.

“Is French hard for a Russian to learn?” Mattie asked, of course he was curious about that. He never really understood how it was possible for him and his brother to be so different when it came to learning a new language. What came naturally for Mattie was a struggle for Alfred.

“Mattie, French is horrible, regardless. Katya’s probably just like you – freakishly good at it.”

By the time Arthur came downstairs, Alfred and Mattie had gotten into a debate about whether or not it was easier to learn French than English, whether or not you needed to have some French loving gene inside you to appreciate.

It made Alfred think of Napoleon – he loved reading about Napoleon – and whether or not they would have been speaking French now if his whole Russian conquest business had been successful. Katya didn’t say anything, she went about setting the table after the Mattie showed her where the dishes were. When Alfred mentioned Napoleon though, she got this really far off look in her eyes, like Mattie sometimes did when Alfred knew he was thinking about the orphanage.

_Sad_ , she looked sad.

But then Arthur came into the kitchen and Alfred was already hungry, so he really wanted to get on with breakfast.

“Enjoying yourselves?” Arthur asked with a raised eyebrow. He looked at Alfred, Mattie, and finally his eyes settled on Katya. He looked her straight in the eye, but she averted her gaze and didn’t say anything.

“Katya made breakfast! And we were just trying to explain to her how to say stuff in English that she didn’t know before. Me and Mattie are going to help her learn English, you know.” Alfred said with an excited smile. Oh _yeah_ , it was going to be awesome – him and Mattie made a great team, and it was…like…their _duty_ to help her.  He turned towards Mattie, met his twins eyes with a grin and continued, “Also she speaks really good French, so I guess Mattie gets to exercise with her too.”

“Is that so?” Arthur asked, his brows furrowing slightly. It seemed like he was a bit upset, but Alfred had no idea why that would be the case. Probably just that he didn’t have his tea yet – Arthur was the grumpiest in the morning.

“Yeah, isnt’s that right, Mattie?” His brother didn’t like to offer many explanations, usually, but Alfred was more than willing to do the talking for him. “Mattie even asked where she got so good at it. I thought that – coming from France and all” he waved it off, like it was self-explanatory, “but then Katya said her brother taught her, and that’s really cool, right?”

He was thinking about all the cool things Mattie and him learned from each other and smiled wistfully at the thought.

“Really? Did she say that?” Arthur’s eye narrowed while he fixed Katya with his gaze. She kept her head lowered and didn’t say anything.

Alfred thought that was strange. Arthur still looked really pissed off, and he had no idea why. Maybe he really just needed his tea, maybe he didn’t like the pancakes that Katya made?

Alfred liked them, though. He took a bite out of rolled pancake with blueberry jam, and really… he could hear himself chew. Why was everyone so silent? He looked around the table – Arthur was still glowering at Katya. Katya was still not looking at anyone. Mattie was glaring at him.

And then he got kick in the shin.

“Ow, Mattie, really?”

Why was everyone acting so weird? Not for the first time, Alfred felt a bit left out. Like there was something important happening in front of him and he was completely missing out on it.

Oh well. If it was really important, Mattie would most likely tell him afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in the world of this AU, Kiku is feeling a deep pain in his chest at the fact that Teen!Alfred called Samurai "Bush Knights." 
> 
> Meanwhile - hot damn, this is so fun to write. :) I am aware that things are moving a bit slow, but you gotta create context for stuff to actually happen, right? Ideally, I want to update twice a week - Monday and Friday. Hopefully I will also to be able to stick to his. 
> 
> Also - I realized that there was no need for M rating yet, so I put it at T. It will most likely go up in the future, and the tags might change along the way as the plot calls for it. 
> 
> Next chapter: Mattie and Alfred get used to having Katya in the house, Mattie's crush gets worse, Ivan is physically absent but very much present in everyone's minds.


	3. Ivan - Tsarevitch, Karamazov, Braginsky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life with Katya and her stories about Ivans.

 

In the next few days following Katya’s arrival, things seemed to settle into a pattern.

First pattern– and most embarrassing –

Alfred realized that pressing his ear to the wall that Matthew’s room shared with Katya was pointless. He wasn’t really interested in just listening to the occasional sound that came from the other side, and it wasn’t like Katya could reveal her secrets through the bricks. He lost interests in that method of spying and just wanted to back to the regular Alfred way of gathering information. By asking them directly and without any real finesse, subtle as a sledgehammer.

This wasn’t really something Matthew agreed with. If they did want to gather information, they needed to go at it with a much higher degree of subtlety.  So Matthew sat his brother down one day and they had a _talk._

 _“_ We can’t just expect them to tell us things when we ask about it. It’s not working – Do you remember how Arthur cut us off when we wanted to ask about her? _”_

 _“_ Yeah, Arthur really wants to pretend there’s nothing weird going on. _”_ Alfred said, “But Kat avoids the subject whenever you ask her something directly.”

“Well…” Matthew thought for a moment – how to teach Alfred the art of subtle inquiry? That was an impossible task and Matthew didn’t consider himself brave enough to undertake such a task. “We don’t have to ask directly. We just need to get her to feel comfortable around us, and ask innocent stuff, you know? That way, she’ll end up giving us information bit by bit. A little more every day until we have enough.”

It was a good plan. Alfred was a bit reluctant at first – his curiosity wasn’t something that could be satisfied with a little information, thought Matthew hoped that a little _constant_ information would grow into something productive.

So it was like this. For the first week after Katya’s arrival, Alfred took it as an opportunity for sleep-overs, spying and creating overly elaborate theories about Katya’s backstory. The last one was his favorite. There was also the fact that Alfred - when he was stressed out, when things were uncertain, when changes happened that set a dent in the daily rhythm of life – he went to Matthew. Matthew realized it that it was probably the constancy of him that his brother wanted – Alfred could always count on him to be there for him.

Alfred always accused him of taking after Arthur - a creature of habit, does not like change, goes for the same things over and over again. Matthew didn’t agree, but never said as much to Alfred. Between the two of them, Matthew thought that Alfred was the one far more inclined to constancy and pattern. Matthew knew how to observe patterns, adapt to them, work with them and break them. Alfred was the one that let himself be carried by instinct and impulse, and his impulse and instincts always led him to Matthew. Matthew accepted – because his brother was willing to take on the world for him – it was only fair for him to take care of Alfred when the other didn’t even realize he needed soothing.

 So Alfred got used to Katya’s presence as something that was _there_ and would be there for an indefinite amount of time. That meant that Alfred’s curiosity and impulsivity had toned down a bit – enough for him to listen to Matthew about how they were supposed to go about this. He wasn’t bubbling with excitement anymore, which was good – Matthew loved his brother, but he also knew that Alfred’s general _Alfredness_   could be off-putting to someone as skittish and evasive as Katya.

It also meant that it was no longer a given that he came directly to Matthew’s room after he changed in his pajamas.

Sure, he still came over in the middle of the night to talk Matthew’s ear off. That went unchanged and Matthew thought there were more chances for the moon to literally fall out of the sky than for Alfred to suddenly sleep soundly during the night and not bother Matthew at least a few times a week. But it still meant that Alfred went to sleep in his own bed, so that gave Matthew some hours of being completely alone.

He made a new habit too – that of staying up later than usual. While Alfred wasn’t particularly interested in listening in on what Katya was doing, Matthew… _was_. It made him blush hotly with embarrassment to think about it – he didn’t even have to formulate it as such in his own head, he didn’t even focus on it. While he was all alone, he couldn’t justify it to himself to press his ear against the wall like Alfred did. It was too embarrassing to do that! He just…listened intensely.

He lay in his bed and closed his eyes and focused on listening for things – to discern which were the sounds of the house settling, which were the sounds of Arthur’s footsteps retreating into his bedroom, which were the sounds that came from Katya’s bedroom. Which were her footsteps – her footsteps were light and careful and she didn’t wear shoes inside her room, so he never heard her steps. He never heard her moving things around, he never heard any sound made by her.

Matthew heard other sounds, though – sometimes a chair would screech as it was moved, the sound of metal on metal when she pulled the curtains, or he heard her bed give a soft _creak_ when she moved into the night. Not her sounds, but the sounds the of the house interacting with her. Katya tried to be silent and unobtrusive, but the house moved around her.

Matthew closed his eyes and kept his mind absolutely blank. It was bad enough that he was trying to listen in on her – he absolutely and completely refused to let himself imagine her there. Even though he could, he could imagine her moving around and her skirts moving around her. He could imagine her bare toes peeking out beneath the hem of her skirt, her fingers pushing her hair behind her ear. Lips pursed in concentration at whatever she was doing, delicate eyebrows furrowing or rising. Eyelashes fluttering. Eyelids twitching.

Matthew absolutely refused to think about it, he kept his mind blank, but imagines came to him regardless of how hard he tried. An excessive amount of blood decided to take residence in his cheeks, embarrassment and shame bright in his stomach. _God_.

This was…

Ugh.

But she was so _pretty…_ and…erm…

And she was nice and sweet and smiled softly and….

* * *

 

Second pattern – most comfortable –

Alfred and Matthew started to wake up earlier than usual. This pattern had established itself rather abruptly, during the second day of Katya’s stay, Alfred had woken him up at some ungodly hour of the morning and dragged him down to the kitchen. They had found Katya already there, preparing breakfast. Alfred had done the same thing the next morning, and the next, and kept at it. By the time the second week of Katya’s stay had passed, Matthew was already expecting Alfred to come wake him up decidedly too early for comfort, but by the end of the third week, Matthew started waking up all on his own.

So it went like this -  they woke up earlier, got dressed and went downstairs. Katya was usually in the kitchen by then, with a kettle of tea already waiting for them. Arthur took the habit of waking up earlier too – he read his newspapers in the kitchen, while drinking his morning tea. Katya would prepare breakfast for them and they would just…chat. Katya’s English improved immensely – she was quick to learn new words, pronunciation and sentence structure. Whenever she didn’t know something specifically, she simply said it in French and Matthew supplied her with the English version.

Arthur took to having international newspapers brought in - it was hard to bring in Russian newspapers on a constant basis, but he could bring them in once a week for Katya to keep up with what was happening back in her own country. She didn’t seem inclined to study them much, though.

“They are very censored.” She explained to them once. Arthur had delivered a stack of paper’s written in Cyrillic, but only skimmed them with a distasteful frown on her face. “It is only information that the has been approved by the party. Most of it is garbage”.

It launched a series of questions from Alfred. Sure, they knew about the Communist regime, in a detached sort of way that you knew about a lot of other stuff – information that got filtered down to them, things that Arthur thought they should know about, but really, most of it was much too far removed from them to have any real sort of impact. Arthur himself was a staunchly against it, Katya was didn’t like to talk about it and her face got very hard and tense when it was mentioned.

“It will pass. The situation in Russia, it will pass as well. Everything does, eventually. The Tsars passed, the Emperors did. The Communists will pass too, when the world is done with them.” She had shrugged her shoulders then, and started fidgeting with the wooden spoon she was using the stir cinnamon oatmeal.

“Yes. That much is true,” Arthur had agreed with her. “But the amount of damage someone does still lingers even if they are gone.”

“It heals. The world heals. No matter how bad the storms are, the famine, the wars…people still find a way to live on, regardless.”

“It’s what people do, unfortunately. They live on.” Arthur had said with slight bitterness and an eyeroll that made Matthew’s stomach clench.

That night, Alfred came up with the theory that maybe Katya’s mysterious brother was some sort of Communist party member.

One of that was high up, really involved in the political game, or military or something and Katya had run away from Russia because she was opposed to his ideas. Cue angst.

Matthew thought….that was actually the most plausible theory his brother had come up with yet, but he couldn’t say he agreed with his until they had some sort of a proof.

Katya still took the papers that Arthur brought, and she still skimmed them, but there always one page in the back of the paper that she seemed to be really interested in. The weather section. Matthew found that funny – she was in England now, Russia was a long way away and he failed to see what kind of impact the weather, out of all things, would have. Alfred thought nothing of it.

Arthur found it funny, and kept asking her –

“So? Any freak snow storm happening in the Motherland?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Not worth mentioning.”

Then, there was lunch. Between breakfast and lunch they still had lessons together – Alfred and Matthew and Arthur, but now Katya was there as well. Arthur had said that she would start with their studies, but first there would be period in which she would sit in on some of their lessons to see what they were doing.

During History lessons, Alfred always got excited when they were talking about some kind of war. Alfred was much too fascinated with war – the two of them had been born the same year the Great War had ended, and Matthew sometimes thought his brother’s fascination with the bloodier side of history came from his conviction that their father had been a soldier.

‘ _He had to be! That’s why mother had to give us up – because Father was a soldier and died in the Great War. She couldn’t take care of us, so she had to let us go!_ ’

Alfred had a very elaborate tale about how their real parents were – it had been established while they were in the orphanage and kept getting more and more complex as time went by. Alfred liked imagining their mother and their father, falling madly in love, having a whirlwind, star-crossed romance that eventually ended in tragedy. Alfred imagined love at first sight things, how their parents surely met for the first time and then the stars aligned and the angels sang and they just _knew_ instinctively, that they were meant to be together.

So – Alfred made fun of Matthew for reading _romantic_ books, but Matthew himself never held any illusions of romance. And because Alfred’s fascination with war came a very early time in their life and from a decidedly romantic idea of torn apart lovers, it grew to be… _romanticized_ as well.

It was all battles for freedom and liberty and great ideals of fighting for love and unity and greater glory. More French Revolution _theory,_ rather than _practice._

“You are much too fascinated with death, child.” Katya had told Alfred once, after they had finished a discussion about the American Civil War.

“Kat, no way. It’s not about death, it’s about freeing people that were oppressed and fighting for the right thing to do.”

“War is _always_ about death.”

“People always die, though. Shouldn’t it mean something that at you at least die for something you believe in?”

Alfred had a furious blush spread across his cheeks, and Katya was looking at him with very deeply rooted sadness.

“Alfred, that’s enough. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re a child, you know nothing death and what _dying for something_ means.” Arthur own voice was bubbling with anger.

“That’s not true. I’m _not_ a child and I know damn well what things I’d be willing to die for.”

Alfred got up and stormed out of the library, while Arthur cursed, got up and ran after him. Matthew and Katya were left in silence, for the span of a few moments. He wondered if he should get up and follow after his brother and Arthur – but he was just about useless when the two of them started fighting. Arthur always insisted Alfred had no idea what he was talking about, Alfred himself insisted he had everything figured out. Katya herself sighed and crossed her hands on top of the table.

“Your brother is much too passionate. He will burn himself out much sooner than most.” She said in a low voice. Matthew was unsure how to reply to that.

“He’s always been like that. Alfred’s very stubborn and gets very righteous about stuff. Arthur tries to yell it out of him sometimes, but he never gets him to back down.” 

Katya considered his words. For a moment, her eyes lost their focus and she was starting transfixed at a point on the opposite wall. He could only imagine what kind of scene was playing out in front of her, developing on the white wall of the library like a motion picture on a cinema screen. He wondered who she was arguing against in her memory? Brother, he would assume it was her brother. She shook her head and chuckled sadly.

“Passionate, self-righteous and stubborn. Burns too brightly for his own good. He reminds me too much of Ivan.”

* * *

 

Third Pattern – most confusing –

Alfred and Matthew always had to read things, Arthur had a special time slot dedicated to having them read. Katya, Arthur had always sat right beside them. He had brought papers and letters and documents from his study and worked on them, read the paper or a book, but most days they had been supervised, and Arthur rarely left them alone. Had claimed that doing so result in chaos and havoc, because while Matthew was trustworthy and diligent with his work, Alfred was anything but.

But now they were being left alone in the library to read. Arthur gave them their work, made sure they were set to it, and he would take Katya with him to his study.

“What do you think they’re doing there?” Alfred asked. Matthew wasn’t really sure what to answer him. Had Arthur been any other sort of man, he would have certainly thought that the reason for that amount of privacy was of… _delicate_ nature. But in this case, it hardly made sense.

If Arthur wanted to have his way with Katya – Matthew’s bedroom shared a wall with Katya’s, right? He never heard her door open and close during the night. Never heard any weird sounds coming from there, Arthur was not visiting her bedroom and Katya wasn’t leaving her own. And Arthur looked at Katya _coldly_.

Scientifically.

Like she was something to be studied.

There was absolutely no amount of passion or heat in his gaze. He kept her at arm’s length all the time, not the sort of behavior one would see in a man with a lover.

But there was something there that itched at the back of Matthews skull – something Katya had said during that fateful night of her arrival. That she could _teach_ Arthur things, and that kept bothering him. What did that even mean, anyways?

Sometimes, Alfred and Matthew followed them. They waited a few minutes, until they were certain that it wouldn’t raise any suspicions, then they took off their shoes and snuck out of the library with their feet bare so they wouldn’t make a sound. They tried listening at the door to what Katya and Arthur were saying, but it was useless. Arthur had a gramophone in his office, and played music while they were there. Matthew was almost certain this was a precautionary method – Arthur was always a little bit of paranoid, and he knew all about their eavesdropping habit.

It was frustrating.

Information gathering was a slow, tedious process. 

* * *

 

Fourth Pattern – most fun –

After they finished their lessons, after they finished their readings and the regular chores they Arthur insisted on them doing – things like mowing the lawn (Alfred’s duty) or watering plants (Matthew’s favorite) – they were free do to as they pleased.

For Alfred – a lot of time it meant working on one of his projects. Matthew knew that his brother always had a “project”.  Sometimes, a project for Alfred meant that he might have read about some sort of medieval siege weapon or construction machinery, and after doing a lot of sketches and calculation and what not, he’d try to build it on a small scale – he managed to get them terribly accurate.

Other times, there was something that had broken down and couldn’t be used anymore – and Alfred took it, opened it up to see how it worked and then try to put it back together. This included lamps, old cameras and old telephones. Alfred lovingly took them apart and then put them back together with various levels of success.

A lot of time, for Matthew, that meant going right back to the library to look for a nice book that he’d enjoy – many times, that had nothing to do with the kind of books that Arthur insisted they read - and he’d take it with him in his room or the living room. That’s how he read _Le Rouge et Le Noir_ and _La Dames aux Camelias,_ and _Buddenbrooks_ and _Faust._  

But…

One day, while Alfred was outside, working on his latest “project” – small trebuchet that was meant to throw apples – Matthew was determined to find something else to read. The last book he got was Victor Hugo’s _Notre Dame de Paris_ in the original French. It was horribly heart-wrenching and he needed something to wash away the lovely sadness of it. So he was taking Hugo back to his rightful place and was very determined to read get something a bit happier, when he realized that there was someone already there.

Katya was sitting at the table that was Alfred and Matthew usually occupied for their lessons. She had two different books opened in front of her – both of them thick, one of them had obviously been very used because it was sitting opened without any issue. She also had a notebook and a pen with her, writing something absentmindedly while her eyes were darting between the two books.

She didn’t notice him right away, so Matthew had a couple of moments in which his contemplated turning around and running away. He didn’t, just stood there frozen and looking at her, until she raised her head and their eyes met. Katya smiled. Matthew swallowed thickly, as his throat was dry.

“Hello. I did not see you there.” She said, and Matthew held out his book as if to justify his presence there.

“Hi. I just came by to leave this here and pick something else. I won’t disturb you, I promise.” Damn, his voice sounded a pitch higher than usual.

“It is fine.” She squinted at him and looked at the book he was carrying. The title on the cover was written in big, bold golden letters on dark burgundy leather. Her eyes lit up and asked…“Did you enjoy it?”

He blinked at her a couple of times before he realized what she had asked him. “Ah…- _yes._ Very much. It’s very sad, though.”

A sound of agreement rumbled in her throat before she added, “Yes, sad. But death is…” her brows furrowed here as she searched for the words, “… _poetic_ and very beautiful for Hugo.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” He copied a gesture from Alfred, straightened his back and shrugged only one should in a manner that he hoped conveyed both confidence and aloofness.

His brother always looked a little older and cooler when he did it, so Matthew thought it might have the same effect for him. He stepped closer to her, meaning to walk around the table as to leave the book on its proper shelf. When he was close enough, his eyes fell to the books she had opened in front of her. One of them was in English, but he didn’t pay attention to what it was saying. The other one was written in Cyrillic.

“That’s in Russian, right? Did you bring it with you?” he asked before he could properly process whether that was a nosy question or not. Katya didn’t seem to mind, because she nodded in agreement, took her hands off the table and leaned back in her chair. She was giving him access to look at the books, so he took a breath, stepped a little closer to her chair and leaned forward.

“It is. _Prestupléniye i nakazániye._ _Crime and punishment_. I read it long time ago.” She raised one of her hands to her face and bit at the nail of her thumb. “This was Ivan’s book. I did not enjoy it much when he gave it to me, but I still have it. I am now using it for practice. To compare… _grammatika?_ ”

“Oh, grammar? _Grammaire_?” He supplied. At least some words were similar in all languages, it seemed.

“Yes.”

So she was reading the English version with the Russian one next to her, to compare the grammar structure between languages and probably to exercise her vocabulary too. It explained why her English improved so much in such a short time.

“You didn’t like it?” He asked again, a little peeved. _Crime and Punishment_ he had read fairly recently and really enjoyed it. Maybe Katya saw read it in a different way than he did, maybe some things were lost in translation for him.

“No, I did not.” She shook her head firmly, her short hair bouncing around her cheeks. “There is nothing moral in defending sins and confession does not reduce them. Once done, they stay.” She smiled at him and she continued, “Raskolnikov is too young, or I am too old.”

Matthew turned to look at her. He was still slightly bent over the table, but when he dared to look at her he realized he was much closer than he had anticipated. He willed himself not to jump a way from her and spent the breath of a second studying her skin.

Matthew couldn’t figure out how old she might be – older than him, obviously, but how much older? 22? More than that, but how much more? _24_? 26? Raskolnikov himself was 23, wasn’t he? But Katya couldn’t possible be much older, could she? If she was, how many years were they talking about here?

Suddenly she turned her head, and noticed Matthew staring at her. He averted his eyes quickly, already feeling the blood coming to his cheeks and his stomach sinking to his knees. Not good, not good. He didn’t mean to stare, he was just…

“Yes? Is anything wrong?” Katya didn’t seem to be very bothered by what had happened, though.

“I was just…” oh, breathe in, breathe out – “I don’t’ mean to be rude but…” oh god, oh god, he was about to pull an Alfred. He was about to pull an Alfred, wasn’t he? He was. He shouldn’t ask, he really, really shouldn’t ask, but he had to know. “How-old-are-you?” He asked quickly, hoping that the words would have less impact if he got them all out in one breath.

“Pardon?” Got it all out in one breath, but she was blinking at him like she didn’t understand what he had said. It was probably the case. Alfred had experience with talking too fast, Matthew did not. It was all a jumbled mess when it came from him. But there was no way that question was leaving his lips again, not in that form. Arthur probably felt a stab somewhere in right kidney – it was the knife of betrayal that Matthew stabbed there, and the knife had _Rudeness_ and _Impolitness_ written on either side of the blade.

“ _Quel âge avez-vous_?” It was easier to ask like that, because he didn’t feel as bad about breaking etiquette like that. His cheeks still burned, but at least the voice he used was more controlled, more confident in asking.

Katya understood him this time, and probably thought he was very funny for asking. She gave a little girlish giggle and, well, Matthew supposed a giggle was better than being insulted by him.

“I am old. Much older than you are.”

But that was not an answer – everyone was older than Matthew. Of course she was older, there was no 14 year old girl as tall as Katya. But how much older? He didn’t insist thought, it was bad enough that he asked, twice as that. He cleared his throat, wanting to say something that would ease the awkwardness he was feeling.

“What is a book that you enjoyed? I was here to look for something new, but I would not mind a suggestion.” He made a point out of speaking clearly and not mumble while he was talking to her, to make it easier.  

She looked as if she was considering it, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she got up from the table and went to one of the bookshelves behind her. Matthew knew that was where Arthur kept his Dostoyevskys and his Tolstoys. She seemed to know exactly which one she was looking for, took it out and brought it back to the table with her. She offered it to Matthew – thick and heavy, it had the title _The Brothers Karamazov_ emblazoned on it.

“This is the one that I liked most.” She handed it like it was a secret between them – or maybe that’s just how Matthew felt about it. Thought it might as well have been – Alfred was not the kind to touch a fiction book that thick and Arthur, for all of his extensive library and well-read nature, wasn’t very fond of Russian literature.

 _Too dreary,_ he’d said when he had found Matthew reading _Anna Karenina_ and he just wrinkled his nose at _Crime and Punishment_. Sure, neither were particularly happy in any way, shape or form, but _Too dreary_ was a laughable comment from someone that got excited about Dickens.

So Matthew took the book and held it in his hand and felt the weight of it. Sure. _The Brothers Karamazov._

“May I sit here with you?” He asked and motioned to the table where Katya had spread her things.  “I won’t disturb you.” He added as an afterthought.

“Sit, please. Sit with me” She nodded her head and sat back down on her chair. Matthew followed her lead, took a seat beside her and opened the book.

That’s how pattern four was established.

Matthew and Katya, sitting side by side in the library. They didn’t talk much.

After that first day, it became a routine to go to the library, sit down and read in silence while she made sense of English grammar and syntax. Matthew turned the pages and Katya scribbled away.

 

* * *

 

 

Fifth Pattern was this –

Katya made dinner. Arthur was in his study, as he took to working later into the evening, now that the peculiar third pattern was established as well. Alfred and Matthew sat with her – not every day, but enough times a week to establish a pattern.

They helped with things here and there – peeling and chopping vegetables, kneading dough, filling dumplings with sweet or salty mixtures. Or rather, Matthew peeled and chopped vegetables, kneaded dough once and filled dumplings with sweet or salty mixtures.

Alfred peeled a potato or two, but he cut off and wasted more potato that Katya was comfortable with so he was designated to chopping.

He did more talking than chopping though, so at some point his attention slipped and so did the knife, so he ended up with a big slice across his forefinger and Katya stopped letting him handle the knife.

So in reality, Matthew helped Katya make dinner and Alfred said with them, _sometimes_ helping with the occasional dumpling filling. Mostly, though, Alfred stole carrots to absentmindedly chew on while he did the schematics and the calculations for his latest project, stuck his finger the fillings and left marks on his papers and always _, always_ insisted to be the first one to test the food, regardless to what it was.

“Oh, _Kat,_ these are really nice!” He said, while taking another candied plum from the bowl sitting on the table. Katya was making something called _pierogi_ and they were supposed to be filled with the candied plums that had been left to moisten in cinnamon syrup. They were _supposed_ to, because at the rate Alfred was eating them – they would have nothing left for the food.

“Alfred, stop that!” Matthew scolded him. Really now, Alfred was just like that - he had no restraint with anything.

Matthew was used to it, though he couldn’t help but recognize it as a _childish_ trait and it really made him think – what kind of behavior did he have that could be seen as childish? He made a mental note to analyze his own behavior better and keep it in check – he didn’t want Katya to see him as a _such a child._

Alfred didn’t pay attention to his scolding. He stuck his tongue out at him and reached out to take another plum. Katya let him, but this time she grabbed the bowl and pulled it closer to her and Matthew, effectively snatching it from Alfred’s grasp. Hah! There! If he wanted another plum, he had to get up from his chair and walk across the table to get one.  Matthew saw his brother’s lower lip jutting out in a pout and he was looking at Katya with his eyes overly big.

“ _Tsk._ No more, dorogoy. That’s enough, I need the others.” Her voice was gentle, though, and she had this wistful little smile like she was thinking about a nice, far off memory. She took one of the shapes of dough that Matthew had cut into circles with a glass and spooned one of the candied plums in it. 

“There’s enough of them!” Alfred protested, but Katya didn’t pay attention to him. She molded the dough across the plum and closed it like a little pocket.

“You are very lucky I am the Braginsky sibling that lets you in the kitchen.” She chuckled at that, and she still had that far off look on her face, the little smile that quirked her lips spoke of a fondness that came from memories. “Ivan, he…” She said his name reverently, so soft and low they might not have caught it, had they not been listening for it specifically. Alfred’s eyes got a little sharper at that, him and Matthew exchanged a look across the table.

She had been living with them for a while now, and it was a look that she sometimes got. Matthew realized it was the look that meant she was thinking about her own family, so it was the perfect time to ask questions and hope for an answer.

They usually didn’t get any sort of answer. Matthew tried to let her talk absently about things, and coached Alfred into asking questions _subtlety,_ or at least as subtle as Alfred could ask questions. For what it was worth, at least Alfred was curious enough about the matter to try any means of questioning, even if it gave little results. Straight up interrogating Katya or Arthur never landed any results, so sneakiness was mandatory when proceeding with the delicate topic of finding out more about Katya.

The information they had so far was frankly too little. Katya was Russian, she was hiding from someone dangerous, spoke perfect French, was well read and educated and her brother was someone that unsettled Arthur. Alfred reminded Katya of him, though that had been information that Matthew kept for himself. But that was about it – no other hints about how Arthur and Ivan had met, why they knew each other, it didn’t answer why she was here, why Arthur accepted to take her in.

So really, when Alfred and Matthew exchanged a look across the table, they were agreeing that yeah – this was the time to ask.

“What about Ivan?” He even struggled to pronounce it semi-correctly, with that long _EE_ and open _AAH_ that Katya herself used. It kept the mood for reminisce, they had found out.

Katya didn’t say anything at first, just kept spooning plums in little pockets of dough, humming softly under her breath. Outside it was half-light, dark and cold and moody. 

October had turned into November and November was slowly moving towards December, darkness settled over their house more readily, the cold crept through the windows. Their kitchen was safe from the shadows, though. They kept the electric light overhead working, the stove was hot and crackling and they all tried not to let themselves fall prey to the sadness of the season.

“Ivan cooked at times.” She started saying, without looking up from what she was doing. “He did it well. But he always thinks too much.” There was a soft chuckle here, “Whenever he cooked, he put exactly as many grams as recipe says. I tried to say to him, _‘Ivan, cooking is not a precise art’”_ an eyeroll here, “But he never listened. Always said ‘ _Shush, sister, you are disturbing me_ ’ and told me to leave. I think for him – he wanted to help me by cooking for us. But he thinks too much, does not break out of his own mind. Some things you do not _think._ ” She piled up _pierogi_ on a plate, took them to the stove where a big pot of boiling water was waiting for them.

Katya started dropping them in the water one by one, humming slightly while she was at it. Alfred and Matthew waited for her to say something else, thought she didn’t seem inclined to offer any more information. More prompting was needed, and Matthew looked Alfred pointedly, jerked his head in Katya’s direction. Alfred didn’t seem to get it at first, looking a bit confused, but Matthew mouthed at this ‘ _ask something_ ’.

“What’s he like?” Alfred asked, and Matthew was happy to see that his instructions had on how to deal with this worked on Alfred: try prying information, don’t ask for something specific, anything that kept her talking. They could piece together things later and build a picture for themselves. Slowly but surely, the information would come, they just had to get Katya comfortable with talking about this. And they had time to build up trust and all.

“Younger than me, and tall.” She left the plate where the pierogi had been on the counter next to the stove and turned to them for a second. Katya raised her hand above her head and motioned at the space there. “Very tall,” she took a step forward, grabbed the wooden spoon of the table and started stirring the bubbling pot, “He always complained about being cold.” She kept her back still turned to them, even as she set down the wooden spoon and left the stove.

Katya stood in front of counter, open hands, finger splayed, fingertips touching the marble top. She was looking out the window – it was almost night now, but Matthew very much doubted she saw anything in the darkness. “Quiet around people, and very stubborn. Wanted to know everything, wanted to…” She took a deep breath and Matthew looked at her tense back, saw her shoulders square slightly before she exhaled shakily. While her English had certainly gotten better during the past weeks, now her accent was thicker, and her words were more stilled. “I used to tell him all time, ‘ _Only God knows everything, brother._ ’ You cannot live life by… ” She turned around, but didn’t look at them, her eyes still searched for the window and she kept gazing outside. Katya let the small of her back rest against the counter. “One cannot live with a fist around life’s throat. You will never make it submit.” She shook her head sadly at that.

Matthew shared a look with Alfred. _Push or retreat?_

“Do you miss him?” Push, Alfred chose push. This was the question that made Katya look at them. There was no smile on her face, and she raised her hand to push a lock of her behind her ear.

“No.” Not the answer they were expecting, but then, Katya’s eyebrow knit together in a frown, mouth set tightly. “Yes.” Then, a sigh. She turned around and walked back to the stove. She grabbed a spatula and started scooping out pierogi in a china bowl. “I…the two of us – it was just us for a long time. Good and bad. The good times, I miss. The bad…” she stopped talking all together for a long time. Matthew kept his eyes on her back and had no idea what to do with himself.

It was probably not the moment to ask about anything else. Because, Matthew had a feeling she might have answered, the mood was there. But on the other hand, Matthew felt something in his chest hurt for her. Like he wanted to change the subject because he could see it hurt her, and that made him want to stop it.

He turned to his brother and he could see the same protective need there and…and…

Well. He frowned.

Alfred was like that with everyone and anything. He wanted to take care of things and protect them and take them in. Alfred was good at it, put that at the very foundation of his personality and built it from there. Matthew wasn’t. And this kind of feeling was…new. He didn’t know what to do with it.

“Hey, Katya…” He started, voice small. _Don’t be sad,_ he wanted to say, but the words stuck to his tongue, unable to get out. Katya’s took the pierogi bowl and set it on the window still. She took a dish rag and walked back to the table.

“Let’s clean up here and set the table, yes? We can do that quickly and then we’ll get Arthur for dinner.” She started clearing up the table – threw away the extra bits of dough that were left over, wipe the table of excess flour.

Matthew looked at his brother for a cue on how to act from here, but Alfred just shrugged helplessly, looking just as lost as he was. Tears could be stopped, frowns could be turned into smiles, but in this Alfred was just as clueless as Matthew was. How did you fix this kind of sadness that lingered around a person and clung to them?

“Do you know the story of _Ivan Tsarevitch and the Gray Wolf_?” She asked, while she was scrubbing the table clean. Her eyes never left the table, where she was intensely trying to rub away a stubborn spot of white.

“No, never heard of that one. Arthur always told stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table and stuff like that.” Alfred answered, voice overly cheerful, like he was trying to push away the gloom by replacing it with an overabundance of enthusiasm for fairytales. “And, well…stuff like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and all, they read those to us at the orphanage and…” yeah, Alfred’s voice trailed off at that, stumbling over the memory that conjured.

Katya made a small noise of agreement and finally raised her face from the table. Matthew could see her eyes shining wetly in soft light. When she started speaking, though, her voice was lilting and slow, words dragged out, but there was no hint of tears.

“Once upon a time there lived a Tsar who had three sons.” She started, with a confidence born out of practice. “His youngest was called Ivan.”

Arthur came in a little while later to check on them, around the time the Grey Wolf sprinkled the water of death over Ivan’s body to heal his wounds, and the water of life to bring his soul back into his body.

Alfred was enraptured by Katya’s story telling – his brother always did have a thing for fairytales. But Matthew heard Arthur coming in and turned to him. His rush to turn to the door made Katya and Alfred turn to Arthur as well, and the storytelling stopped. There was a moment of tense silence there – Matthew felt it, the shift in the air when Katya’s breath stuttered in her throat, unsure about what do to or say further on.

“Arthur, you came just in time for the good part.” At least Alfred’s voice cut through the mood in the room. His brother grinned and turned back to Katya, waiting for the story to continue. But Katya wasn’t paying attention to them, her gaze was still focused on Arthur. The Englishman caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, questioning her with his eyes.

“ _Ivan Tsarevitch and the Gray Wolf._ Was telling them…”

“Fairy tales?” Arthur supplied, but he seemed amused more than anything else. Katya nodded briskly and motioned to the table.

“While making dinner. Yes.”

Alfred opened his mouth to say something, but Matthew kicked him under the table before he had the chance to say anything. His twin threw him a short glare, but stood silent nonetheless. Matthew shrugged apologetically, but he’d rather that Alfred glare at him a little than give any hint of the conversation that had led to this whole scenario.

“Far be it from me to stop you,” Arthur proceeded to take a seat at the table. Katya visibly relaxed, started to go on with the story. Alfred focused on her words, Matthew focused on her while she grabbed bowls of food and placed them on the table. There had previously been a tension to her limbs that but it kept niggling at the back of Matthew’s head. His brows furrowed, trying to piece together the information that Katya had offered them. He tried to paint a picture in his head of the kind of man Ivan might be, tried imagining what could have happened to make her run.

_What are you hiding?_

 

 


	4. Zephyr, Zefirs and A son for Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katya tells Alfred a story, about a Princess that gives birth to a son. His name is Ivan.

***  
When Alfred opened his eyes, his heart was fluttering wildly against in ribcage.

Okay, okay.

This happened sometimes. He shut his eyes again, took a deep breath. Released it slowly. And again. Inhale. Exhale. Until the fluttering stopped, then once more. When his heart no longer felt like it was trying to escape his chest, Alfred yawed deeply and reached for the clock on the bedside table. He grabbed it and brought it in front of his face to see what time it was.

3.45. AM.

Alfred sighed and put the clock back on the nightside table more forcefully than he meant to. He sat up in bed and stretched, his spine popping in a very satisfying manner as he did so. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep now. A long experience of nights exactly like this had taught him that once he woke up from a dream like that, there was no point in trying to go back to sleep any time soon, because it would be completely useless.

The thing is – Alfred never had nightmares, per se. The times in which he actually remembered what he was dreaming about were very rare. Sometimes he just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Sometimes he would wake up and just think – Hey, I should go check up on Mattie. Sometimes he really did wake up because of a storm.

And sometimes, he woke up with his heart fluttering because he remembered something, the memory of a feeling that could not be forgotten.

It wasn’t anything horrific, far from it. Really. This one time – Alfred found a kitty when they were at the orphanage, thought it was really really cute and smuggled in to show it to Mattie.

It had been winter and the kitten had been meowling outside, behind the dumpsters of the orphanage. It was so tiny and fluffy, and the snow was already thick and kept coming down, so naturally Alfred couldn’t leave it there. He took the kitty and smuggled it back inside orphanage, held it out proudly in front of Mattie. But you can’t keep cats in the orphanage, which they already knew, so it shouldn’t have been surprise that when the caretakers found it, they scolded Alfred for it and told him he couldn’t keep it.

Really, he should have expected it. It lasted less than a day. Kitty found by morning, kitty gone by evening. Mattie had been disappointed, but Alfred remembered being devastated. He cried, and he raged, and Mattie tried to shush him, but to no avail. He got a little embarrassed thinking about it now, but back then….

So that night, after lights out and going to bed, Alfred didn’t want to go to sleep. He stayed up in bed after Mattie had fallen asleep next to him, looked out the window of their room. There was so much snow outside and it was still snowing. Had wondered what happened to the kitty.

He was almost – almost asleep when he heard the meowing again. It was stupid – really. Thinking about it now – maybe he had been asleep and had dreamed it, maybe it was just something he’d wished he’d heard. Regardless what Alfred’s 14-year-old mind thought about it now, Alfred’s 8 year-old mind was sure that was his cat, and he needed to go get it, take it out from the cold and inside.

So he got out of bed, took his slippers and his winter coat over his pajamas and snuck outside. Thinking about it now, Alfred was impressed with his younger self’s ability to sneak out of the orphanage. He used the window of the bathroom downstairs – it was just big enough for him to squeeze out through it. He still remembered how his slippers got wet when his feet first touched the snowy ground. The decision to go outside to look for the meowling cat was regretted almost instantly. The winter wind was terrible and fierce and cutting, the wetness and the coldness got to his feet and they almost froze over.

The memory got foggy here. He remembered wanting to look behind the orphanage, where the dumpsters were, where he had found the kitty in the morning. Alfred didn’t really remember how he got there, how much strength it took, if he decided to sit down or if he fell, he just didn’t remember.

Alfred didn’t remember falling asleep in the snow either.

But he remembered waking up. He remembered waking up clearly – the sensation of it, waking up with a start, heart fluttering in his chest like it had stopped and restarted in double time. That was what he kept remembering in his dreams so many time, the feeling of waking up in the snow, early morning, mind blank, heart racing, breath coming in short. But he wasn’t cold.

“Child, look at me. Look at me.” That had been the first time he had heard Arthur’s voice. The older Englishman was crouched in front of Alfred, behind the orphanage, where the dumpsters were. “I saw you here while I was passing down the street. Are you okay, child?” Arthur had asked again, and Alfred had thought that he had kind eyes.

And that’s how he met Arthur. Arthur had found him sleeping behind the dumpsters, sleeping in the snow. Then Arthur decided to take him inside.

It shouldn’t have been a bad memory – right? It wasn’t – a lot of it was foggy and he wasn’t really sure of many of the details. But he remembered waking up in the snow, and his body remembered it on so many nights.

Alfred got out of bed and paced a couple of times around the room. Thinking about it, yeah, he could go check up on Mattie, wake him up and see if his brother was in the mood to talk a bit. Talking to Mattie made it easier to fall asleep afterwards. Though he could also go get something sweet from the kitchen. Alfred grinned at the thought.

Yup, that sounded better.

He could go down to the kitchen, grab some of the pastries that Katya had made for them, maybe try the new ones that were left to set over night. He’d take some for himself, some for Mattie, and wake his brother up with a peace offering.

He opened the door of his bedroom and walked through the hallway. As he walked passed his brother’s door, he thought – Mattie was getting cranky lately, without having much a reason. His brother had developed a bit of a temper. Not much, really, but enough to snap at Alfred with a furious blush spread across his cheeks. He was also spending a lot of time with his nose in his books; more so than ever, especially since him and Katya made it a habit to sit in the library and read together.

For Alfred, that was the epitome of boring. He had no idea what his brother found so fascinating with sitting around and reading for hours, because he knew for a fact that Mattie and Katya rarely talked when they were together. He knew because for a couple of days back at the end of November and the beginning of December, Alfred had gotten really curious to see what they were doing there, so he set about gathering information.

Also – Alfred thought, was he was making his way downstairs – he had asked Mattie about it a couple of times, and Mattie just blushed and stammered something useless. So yeah – he wasn’t proud of himself about it, but he did spy on them a little. They just spent hours over there reading together, Katya occasionally asking about a word or something. Definitely nothing cool happening there, but if his brother wanted to spend his time being a nerd with her, then who was Alfred to stop him?

There was a tug in his chest thinking about that. He didn’t mind Mattie spending time with Katya, really he didn’t. Alfred had always known that his brother and him had different ideas about what was fun to do in their extra time, they just always set about it…alone. Neither of them really had anyone else to spend time with, apart from Arthur, so for Mattie to suddenly start spending time with someone else…well. It was still something he was getting used to.

Katya was cool thought, Alfred thought as he stepped into the kitchen and turned on the light. He couldn’t fault Mattie for liking her – Alfred liked her too. She wasn’t a princess, that much was sure, but it was okay because he had been right when he suspected that she knew how to bake.

God, she really knew how to bake – there were cookies and shortbread and all these Russian treats that she made every couple of days. The best part was that she let Alfred taste everything and asked him what he liked – more sugar, flakier crust, make them crispier, add more filling. For Christmas, Katya had started preparing food and cakes and cookies a few days before and everything had been delicious.

Alfred had been as excited about the gingerbread and the cakes as he had been about the bicycle that both him and Mattie got. She made this delicious cake called Napoleon. That one made him giggle – because Katya had explained to him that the Russian idea was that the layers of the cake were supposed to be the French army and the pastry crumbs on top symbolized the Russian snow. A little morbid, kinda witty, completely delicious.

It was the 30th of December, New year’s day was literally right around the corner, Alfred should really ask her to make another one.

What kind of sweets did they still have left over? Alfred stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to think about where everything was. Katya had put some treats in a metal box and set them on the top of the cabinets. That was a bit too far for him to reach without help, he needed to grab a chair for that.

So yeah – that was the plan. Alfred took one of the heavy, wooden kitchen chair and set it in front of the cabinets. He got on it, his bare toes feeling sticky against the lacquered wood. He reached for the box and meant to take it down, when…

“Alfred, what are you doing here?”

Ouch.

Busted.

He cringed a little and turned toward the voice. It was Katya standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She was wearing a knitted jumper over her nightclothes and an amused, curious look on her face. Alfred grinned like it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Hey Kat. I’m good, thanks. Was just looking for something to eat.”

Katya raised an eyebrow and came into the kitchen.

“At this time? It is very late. Why are you not asleep? Get down from there, dorogoy.” She motioned for him to get off from there. Alfred looked forlornly at the metal box of cookies, but he supposed he did feel a little bit guilty about getting caught in the act. Fine. He got down from the chair and crossed his arms across his chest.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He shrugged and offered as explanation. “Felt like grabbing something sweet for me and Mattie.”

“Is your brother awake too?” Katya asked, blinking and looking around.

“No. Mattie is sleeping, I guess. I was about to check in on him afterwards, but…” he waved her off. He thought this was about the time that Arthur would send him back to bed, tell him to leave Mattie alone to sleep. He was prepared for Katya to do the same, but she just made a sound of agreement at the explanation and headed to the door of the pantry. She opened the door, stepped inside, and emerged a few seconds later with a small tray that Alfred knew she had set there the previous day.

“Maybe let your brother sleep. I will keep you company. I am not sleeping either.” She set the small tray on the table, and Alfred was presented with a colorful array of little sweets. Katya had made a bunch of these the day before.

They had three trays of them, in various sizes, all of them looking lovely. Pale pink and violet, Katya had made them with egg whites and sugar and fruit preserve, told Alfred he wasn’t supposed to touch them until they were set. His mouth watered while looking at the pretty sweets.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to have these yet!” He grabbed on off the tray and took a bite of it. It was soft and chewy and sweet and amazing.

“Not until they are set, yes! But they are ready now, and we have enough of them for you to eat one or two now.” She told him with a giggle in her voice.

“These are really good, Kat.” Alfred said, reaching for another one. He took a violet one this time, and sat down heavily on of the chair to enjoy it. “What’d you say these were called?” He’d meant to ask her why she wasn’t asleep either, but really, he forgot all about it when confronted with sweets.

“Zefirs” the corners of her lips quirked at the name, “like the west winds.” Alfred felt the urge to roll his eyes.

“Fancy, I guess. Pink, flower shaped cookies named after the guy that kidnapped spring.” Katya blinked at him a couple of times without saying anything, so Alfred felt he needed to clarify, “You know, that guy. Zephyr, the god of the West Winds. He kidnapped this chick and married her.”

“Chloris, yes. I know the story. She made flowers bloom in the spring.” She took one of the zefirs and bit into it, made a face at the taste. “Tsk. I still do not like these much.”

“Really? They’re really tasty, though.”

“I find them much too sweet. I was certain you would like them, though. Ivan used to love them too, so I always made them for his birthday.” She sighed, and put the half-eaten confectionary on the table. “I am surprised you know that story.” Her dislike for the candy forgotten, she switched back to the previous topic. Normally, this would have been Alfred’s cue to ask more about her brother, about her life before she came to them. However, this time, he felt himself bristle a little.

“Mythology is cool,” he started with a shrug. Just because he wasn’t as smart as Mattie was didn’t mean he was stupid or completely uninterested in the intellectual stuff. He just wasn’t into reading as much, as a lot of books, he just found boring. Mythology was different though, those kind of stories had always interested him – with the heroes and the gods and the goddesses.

“I always had a thing for it. All the monster slaying and the cool powers and immortality and Elysian Fields and all. ” He grinned at her brightly, previous hurt completely forgotten. “There’s a lot of abductions and whisking away ladies to marry them. Like Zeus kidnaps Europa, Hades kidnaps Persephone, Zephyr kidnaps Chloris.”

“Yes, whisking away the bride, very popular.” She explained, while sitting on the chair across from him. “We have…several stories like that. I was never fond of them. My mother, she….” Katya stopped herself and frowned. She frowned and shook her head, as if dislodging something unpleasant from her throat.

“Did she tell you that kind of story?” Alfred suggested, grinning. “Like…’If you misbehave, this a strange man will whisk you away to marry you’?”

“No, nothing as such. There was a story we had – I hated telling it, but Ivan wanted to hear it all the time.”

“What story?”

“…a story, Alfred. Simply a story.”

“Well, that’s much of an explanation. What’s the story about? How does it go? What did he like about it? I wanna see if your brother has good taste or not.”

“It is not a very happy story, I am afraid. ” Katya said apologetically, but Alfred just shrugged.

“Neither is Tristan and Isolde, but Arthur still told me that one to me years ago.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the window, to show Katya the snow outside, glowing in the winter night. “And look at the weather outside. It’s not really in the happiest mood, is it?”

Katya looked out towards the darkness, and for a minute she didn’t say anything. Alfred got a little antsy in his chair and shuffled around a bit. It was uncomfortable to sit in silence like that, but he waited for her to make up her mind. Meanwhile – he took advantage of her absentmindedness and stole another zefir off the plate.

“It went like this,” Katya started. Her elbow was on the table top, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes gazing out the window. “Once upon a time, there was a prince. He had lands and riches, and many servants. The prince was vain and headstrong – a proud man, but he had reasons to be proud.”

“Was his name Ivan? I swear, all the guys in your stories are named Ivan.”

“No, his name wasn’t Ivan. Hush now, you wanted to hear this story.” Katya meant to scold him, but it did not come out as reprimanding.

“Sorry, sorry. You can go on, I won’t interrupt you again,” he promised, though they both knew that was unlikely to happen.

“You see, the prince was a great hunter. So when it came time to choose a wife for himself, he did not want to pick one out of those that he was offered. He had a plan. So he took gold to the blacksmith and asked him to forge him a chain and shackles. He took it to the priest to bless it, and to the old witches of the mountains to enchant it. The priest made it glow with holy fire, the old witches of the mountains plucked rays of sun out of the sky and made it hot. The enchanted gold was said to burn to the touch.”

“What did he want to hunt?” Alfred asked, with a little dread. It might have been because of Katya’s eerily soft voice in combination with the winter winds outside.

“No what. Who.” Katya’s turned her face from the window and looked at Alfred. There was no smile on her face, when she started again, “The Prince took his horse and traveled North, to the lands of always-winter where the land was frozen and barren year round. There, he found the castle of the Winter King. He stalked outside the grounds, for three days and three nights, until one night the Winter King left his home, accompanied by a host of men.

”The Prince snuck inside the castle and there he found the Winter King’s most beloved daughter. He found her sleeping in her bed, so he bound her with his golden shackles and put his burning chain around her neck and stole her in the night. He dragged her away, down south, he took her to his home. Winter bit at their heels and clawed and raged around them, but ice and frost could not break the enchanted chains.”

“Was she beautiful? Did the prince treat her kindly? Was happy to be taken away from her Father?” Alfred asked. “Did she grow to love him?” Alfred always thought that – in the stories, Persephone grew to love Hades, didn’t she? That’s what he liked to think.

Katya chuckled, but it sounded wrong, flat.

“She was beautiful, yes. More beautiful than any other woman to ever walk the earth. Skin like snow and eyes like shards of ice, long hair made of moonlight. So beautiful, that the prince never allowed her to leave their home – he kept her burning chain around her neck, her gold cuffs around her wrists.”

“So yeah – he wasn’t kind to her, if he kept her chains and never let her out of the house.”

“No, not kind. And the princess, she was unhappy. She cursed and screamed her lot in life. She cursed her husband for taking her, her father for not saving her.

‘If Father will not come for me, I will escape’ She told herself.”

“But how would she do it? If she was chained with magic, and the Prince kept her locked in the house?”

“Ah, yes. This is the part that Ivan always liked. See, just because she was captured, didn’t mean she had nothing to save herself with. She had her wit, and she was determined.” Katya straightened her back and looked straight at Alfred. She raised her hand, elbow set on the table, and held out three fingers to him

“First, she called for God to help her, but he was deaf to her pleas.” One finger was lowered, “Then she pleaded with the Devil, but he wanted nothing to do with her.” Another finger was clenched into her fist. Her index finger remained raised, and her lips quirked on side of her face. She paused, looking at Alfred expectantly.

“So who was left?”

“Death.”

Alfred’s eyes widen slightly at the announcement.

“Death?”

“Yes, Death. The one we all meet, regardless of who we are.” She acknowledged it sadly, “The Princess asked him to come, and he did. And she dropped to her knees in front of him and begged him to help.

Help me, she said. Free me. Break my chains.”

“Did he?” Alfred asked breathlessly. Katya ignored him and continued.

“What will you give me in return?, Death asked her.

Whatever is in my power to give, the princess offered. Death accepted, and he stole her away in the night, but this time she went willingly.”

“What did he want from her?” Alfred asked. There was a catch, there was always a price to pay in stories like this one.

“Death was a king himself, Alfred. There was a great legacy there, a kingdom that was meant to be inherited. He wanted what all Kings want. A son.”

A shiver went down Alfred’s spine, but it wasn’t because of the cold. He wasn’t cold, he was never cold, it was a shiver of perceived dread, like when he thought about the ghost that sometimes wondered through the Falkland mansion.

“A son for Death. That’s very… morbid.”

“Yes, it is. A living heir to inherit a dead kingdom.” She smiled sadly at him. “She gave him the heir he wanted, of course. During a winter storm, high in the Ural Mountains, she gave birth to a son that had winter magic in his bones and death in his touch. The Northern Winds took her away, and the boy remained. The snows cradled him, the winds that took him mother rocked him to sleep and the cold only caressed him.”

“What happened to him?” Alfred asked.

Katya only shrugged her shoulders.

“I do not know.” She answered.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? How can you not know? Does the story just end like that? She gives birth to a son and…?” That was the most disappointing ending ever. That was no ending! You can’t end a story like that, goddamnit!

“I’m sorry. Sadly, that’s where this story ends” Katya said. Alfred gaped at her, and inside he was raging at the unfairness of such a bad ending.

“What do you mean, that’s where the story ends? That’s a shit ending Katya, it was just getting more interesting and you just…” Disappointed wasn’t covering the half of it. How could you just let a story end like that? Alfred huffed, and slumped into his chair. “Your Russian stories…ugh. I don’t like them!”

“Alfred!” She gasped with mock outrage and started laughing at him.

Yeah – he liked her stories, she was a good story teller and all, but god, this one had disappointed him with its crappy ending. It had been an excellent story up until the point someone arbitrary decided this was where it ended, offering absolutely no satisfaction to the listener.

“You like the other ones, though, right? The stories about Ivan Tsarevitch.”

“Yes,” he admitted with a sigh. “Those had good, clear endings, though.” He shook his head at hear, trying to shake away the feeling of frustration at still clung to him. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her with a scowl. “I’m gonna make up my own ending to this, Kat. Can’t leave it like that.”

“Please do. I will wait for you to tell it to me.”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll just have to figure it out for myself too. ” He thought for a moment and realized he didn’t get one important detail. If he wanted to continue a story from there, he really did need a little bit of extra information, though. “What was his name, though?”

“Whose name?” Oh, he knew she was just asking to tease him, she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“The boy. What was his name?” He had a moment of silence, in which Katya was just looking at him in the face with more amusement in her eyes than was necessary. He thought about the other stories she had, and that Russian book that Mattie had been reading with the two brothers. He figured it out for himself then, “It’s Ivan, right? Everyone is called Ivan in Russian stories.”

Katya didn’t say anything to dismiss or confirm his comment – he just picked up the tray of zefirs and offered him another one. Alfred glared at the pink and violet treats like they had personally insulted him, but still grabbed one.

They were still delicious.

Damn.

  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers for getting all this out of the way! :D 
> 
> I am so happy that I finally got all of these "setting up" chapters of the way. To be honest, when I first wrote this story, these 4 parts posted until now was literally once chapter. I thought it would be muuuuch to long to just post it all in one go, so I split it up in several parts. XD
> 
> Now that we got through them all, I am happy to announce that from now on - we're getting to the good stuff. 
> 
> Also - about this chapter - The story of Zephyr and Chloris and the whole theme of it, I had to put that in here. I was researching Russian sweets and confectioneries, and came across 'zefirs' (they are super, duper pretty by the way. google them if you haven't). It was a natural choice to create a theme of "zefirs" and Winter Winds vs. Summer Winds and Zephyr and Chloris after that. The fact that I spent all together too much time in the Hannibal fandom didn't help me out, so I pretty knew what I wanted to do with this before I even put it into words in my head. 
> 
> About Alfred: the "Hero" this is pretty much the defining characteristic of America and we all know that and it usually goes without saying that it's translated into a passion for superheroes and comic books. It's the 1930's here, you don't really have that here. In this case, I wanted to go for a passion for fairytales and classic mythology. I can definitely see Alfred loving the idea of old school heroes like Perseus and Hercules.
> 
> Next chapter: There's a time skip, Alfred takes a trip to Italy. He meets some cool people.


	5. The Primavera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they finally meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I planned on writing this, I had told myself that I will some how magically produce several timeskips that will make sense and have Alfred meet Ivan at a respectable, decidedly not-underage 18-19 years old. The reality is that the story sort of took over and it couldnt make sense of how to do that in the context of the story, so I decided to just deal with the potential issues of having to write a romance with an Alfred that starts out as being sixteen. Hence the updated tags and rating.

In 1934, Alfred and Matthew were sixteen and it was the year that Arthur started travelling.

Not for pleasure, no, he started travelling for business purposes. For a long time, he had been able to coordinate the various factories he owned throughout Europe through middle men, phone calls and the occasional London meeting. Now though, with the political climate being what it was throughout the continent, Arthur decided that he needed to check on his factories personally to ensure that everything was alright.

“There’s also the matter of making sure that the officials agree to keep our business in the country. It might become a problem very soon, and I do need to fix it before it gets to that.”

 _Bribes –_ Matthew knew, he told Alfred that much when the two of them were alone. _He means that he needs to bribe some important people, so they don’t close the factories, so they keep buying steel from him._

Arthur never hid the fact that the Great War had basically made him richer than God. If there was one business you wanted to be in when war came, it was steel and iron. Coupled with the fact that Arthur, for his entire hermit like tendencies, had really good business relationships with people from all over Europe, many of them were still inclined to buy from him. Arthur wanted to keep it that way, so he set out on a Great European tour.

For Matthew – the less he knew about it, the better. The idea that a good chunk of their money came from war profiteering made his stomach turn and twists. For Alfred, though, it didn’t seem that bad. As far as Alfred saw it, SOMEONE was bound to make money of the war efforts, right? So Arthur did it in this case, but steel and iron and weapons and ammunition were meant to protect and help just as much as they were meant to kill. Matthew really thought his brother had a very screwed up perception about what it all meant, but far be it from him to start getting into a debate about it.

Katya kept quiet about it. When it was just the three of them, she steadfastly refused to voice any opinion about Arthur’s businesses and his business practices. Katya helped Arthur with a lot of his paper work, so before he got ready for a trip, the two of them would spend hours together in Arthur’s study, pouring over papers and numbers, exchanging insight on the businessmen and politicians that Arthur was meant to deal with. Matthew could see the signs of it each morning on both of their faces. But Katya never said anything about it to them.

The offer for Katya, Matthew and Alfred to join him on his trip was always extended. Katya always politely refused. Matthew didn’t want to hear about it. Alfred was…tempted. More than tempted, Alfred tried to convince Matthew that it might be fun to go with Arthur. No, not really, it wouldn’t be happening.

“Just because you want to go with him, doesn’t mean I have to go!” Mattie had told him firmly. No, he didn’t want to tour the factories. No, he didn’t find the steel refineries fascinating. No, he didn’t want to see how what it was used for, he didn’t care how the bombers were put together.

“Fine, but I want to go. Stay here, I’m _sure_ it’s much more interesting. ” Alfred said with an eyeroll. Matthew just sighed sadly at that, and turned back to his book.

See, something had changed between, and Matthew knew exactly when to pinpoint the change. It started with a fight – a fight in the library, a place that Matthew had held sacred for him. His time reading with Katya was restricted to the library, and it had been just that – _his time with Katya._ Alfred had started joining them, but Alfred had no patience for reading, kept talking, kept interrupting them. Matthew hadn’t indulged him, but Katya did, and soon enough those precious few hours were no longer just Matthew’s. Pretty soon it was all about Alfred, because Alfred demanded attention and it had grated on Matthew’s nerves much more than anything had the right to.

They had a fight.

It had been March, and Matthew would never forget the amount of hurt and betrayal on Alfred’s face when Matthew had yelled at him. But it didn’t make him feel too bad about it, because pretty soon the hurt and betrayal had been replaced by self-righteous anger, unable to understand what had gotten into his brother, but his frustration and the months of being subtly ignored in ways he wasn’t used to…

Well, Alfred gave as good as he got and then some, because Matthew never yelled and never fought with anyone so he had absolutely zero experience in this, while Alfred was an expert.

That had been the start of it, but it surely wasn’t the end of it. It had been the start of tense days and sullen silences, pouting and Matthew had hated it, but he found that for the first time in his life – his pride wouldn’t let him concede to Alfred. Arthur’s prolonged absences and Katya’s refusal to get between the two of them and let them sort it on their own made it all worse.

So they had fought for a lot of small petty issues and neither of them wanted to admit the big ones. Like how Matthew had finally found someone that wanted to spend time with him first. Found someone that didn’t mind he wasn’t as talkative, as energetic and as bubbly as Alfred was. Katya that was soft and sweet and needed to hide in the library as much as he did, because she found too much attention overbearing.

 _Everyone_ preferred Alfred, but Katya liked _him._

He hadn’t been willing to give that up.    

Alfred never really held a grudge, so he still sought his brother’s company, they still talked about everything and nothing and made all these theories, but things really had changed between the two of them. It was the simple fact that they were growing up, and they were growing up in different direction. Alfred had started taking up horseback riding more often, he wanted to go to Manchester to see how they poured steel, to see the machinery and the raw metals.

He stopped seeking out Matthew in the night – it had been a slow trickle down – less and less over a period of a few weeks, then it came to an almost full stop.

One morning, Arthur extended the same invitation he always did before he left.

“I’m going to Italy next week. There’s an old business acquaintance of mine that asked for my presence there. Would any of you like to come with me?”

“Yeah, I’d like to come. I heard Italy’s pretty cool, there’s bound to be stuff to do there.”

Matthew shouldn’t have been surprised that his brother wanted to go, but it still came as a shock.

 

* * *

Florence. They went to Florence, first.

Arthur and Alfred travelled by car to Dover, took the ferry to cross the Channel from Dover to Calais and from Calais they went by train to Florence. The ride took decidedly too much time, in which it was only him and Arthur.

Alfred wasn’t really fond of spending time alone with him and…

No, actually. That wasn’t true.

He liked spending time with Arthur – they went hunting together, they went to the Manchester factories together and Arthur explained to him how steel was refined, how  machine parts were made, answered his questions with surprising patience. However, those were all short trips, a day or two on the road and them back home again, where he got to talk to Mattie about how it went, tell him about all the cool stuff that he saw and learned about.

But now – they would be gone for…a while. Two weeks in Florence, three weeks in Rome, and back again. From Rome they had to go to Paris, for another 2 weeks and only then would they circle back around and get back home. All in all, it was really exciting to get to travel around Europe like that, it sure beat the hell out of spending time in the _library_ while Arthur was away, wasting his time looking at Katya and Mattie being nerdy together and reading some boring thick books.

Still.

Still.

He’d never been away from his brother for that long. He never expected Mattie to…not want to come. Sure, he knew that his brother wasn’t really interested in travelling, and he was less interested in learning about Arthur’s work, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the kind of people that Arthur probably did business with.

But.

He never expected that he would _really_ prefer to stay in England, with Katya, while Alfred left. He never expected he’d just let Alfred go, without protesting.

Sure – Mattie and him and their differences lately, but Alfred couldn’t shake off the sense of betrayal that come with the whole thing. Yeah, he was the one that wanted to go, but did Mattie really have to stay behind just because he didn’t agree with what Arthur did for a living?

Arthur was cool and all, but he didn’t compare with having Mattie around. And Alfred had always thought that when they would start traveling, they would do so together! Instead, it was just Alfred, tagging along with Arthur.

First they arrived in Florence. Their stop was Santa Maria Novella, and when they got out from the train, Arthur and Alfred were greeted by a very stylish and very happy looking young Italian man.

“Signor Kirkland, _Buongiorno_! It’s lovely to see you here.” He put both is arms on Arthur’s shoulders and kissed his cheeks.

“Yes, yes, quite so. Lovely to see you as well, Feliciano.” Arthur said, bristling slightly at the touch, but nonetheless he didn’t cringe from it. “Please, allow me to introduce Alfred, he is my…” Arthur frowned a bit at this, like the word was slightly unfamiliar to him, “Son.”

Feliciano blinked a couple of times, looking between Alfred and Arthur, probably looking for some sort of resemblance. They were both blond, sure, but since Alfred hit his most recent growth sprout, he grew to be slightly taller than Arthur. However, he didn’t say anything about it, the young Italian smiled brightly and Alfred found himself getting the same greeting Arthur had.

“Ve~ So nice to meet you, Alfred!” His voice had this musical tone to it, almost sing-song-y, with inflections that Alfred hadn’t heard before. He decided instantly that he liked it. “ I am Feliciano Vargas. Is this your first time in Italy?”

 “Ah, nice to meet you too, Feliciano.” Feliciano was definitely easier to pronounce than a lot of other foreign names. “Yeah, this is my first time here.”

They picked up their luggage and started to make towards the exit. On their way out of the train station, they walked passed a group of men that all wore black shirts and had some very mean looking faces. Arthur threw them a quick glare, but Feliciano walked passed them without issues.

They looked like the officers that had patrolled the train and asked for their papers when they got to Italy. They didn’t have any issues with them, but then again, each time they came to ask for something from Arthur, Alfred had seen his caretaker slip a couple of banknotes in their passports before handing them in.

“They’re Mussolini’s blackshirts. Best give them something, we don’t any problems while we’re in Italy.” Arthur had told him with his face set into hard lines.

Outside the train station, Feliciano usher them into a black, pretty sweet looking car, and got behind the wheel.

“If it’s your first time here, Alfred, you need to go sightseeing tomorrow! There are so many beautiful things to see here.”

“I was hoping that to avoid the usual tour of Florence, Feliciano,” Arthur said before Alfred had to say anything about it. “I don’t want to see the Uffizi gallery with your grandfather again.”

“Eh, grandfather is not here yet. He was called away for business to in Rome a few days ago, he left with Lovino. It’s just me for the moment, but he will be back soon. He will not be gone more than three more days.”

“Right,” Arthur frowned and his displeasure was so evident in his voice that it made Alfred cringe, “When Rome calls, I supposes it cannot be avoided.” Feliciano didn’t seem to mind it at all though, he looked completely unperturbed by it.

“You know how grandpa is. He’s always called off to Rome for something.” Feliciano continued to speak while he was driving through the winding streets of the city “The Uffizi is very nice, Signor Kirkland! Especially since Alfred hasn’t seen it! You can see _Nascita di Venere,_ with beautiful _Venere_ with Zephyr blowing in her hair and Flora dressing her in flowers, and _Primavera,_ where Zephyr steals Chloris, and…”

“I want to see it.”

Alfred said quickly. He interrupted Feliciano’s dreamy advertising of the Uffizi gallery, but really – Alfred was sold. He wanted to see it. He wanted to see as much of this place as he could for as long as he was here, and yeah – sure, the Uffizi. He’d heard about it before, it had all that Renaissance art. Which – truth be told, Alfred didn’t know much about Renaissance art, but it was bound to be cool.

“That’s great! See, Signor Kirkland? I knew it! Your son will appreciate our fine art!”

Arthur snorted at that but kept quiet. The bad mood was radiating off of him in waves, and he had his hands crossed over his chest with a sour expression on his face. He was looking out the window of the car, trying his best to glare everyone outside into submission.

Feliciano started talking about all the places that passed on their way from the train station. There was the Duomo, there the Palazzo Vecchio _, now we’re passing over the Arno_.

“ _Ah,_ back when Cosimo and Lorenzo were around, when everything was being built…” Feliciano sighed wistfully, “I knew it would be glorious. It’s still the most beautiful place~”

“Would be prettier if it weren’t crawling with fascists.” Arthur grumbled as they got out of the car along with the luggage.

“Ah, Fascists. _Si_ ,” Feliciano said with a big smile and shrug, “Grandpa knows them. Signor Mussolini came here, he walked where Lorenzo and Cosimo walked. But – Grandpa says – _The Cesars died_. _The Medicis died. The Sforzas died. Italy survived._ ” 

Arthur didn’t say anything, just followed Feliciano across the huge, wide open court of the villa and inside, where their shoes made a distinct clicking noise as they walked across the marble. Alfred did his best not the openly stare as they went inside the Vargas home, but he failed spectacularly at it. Spectacular was also the best way to describe the place.

First – it was _huge,_ brightly lit with windows from all sides that let the warm Italian sun stream in. The sun – the light was bouncing off the fine white statues of Roman deities that stood on either side of room. The staircase the led upstairs was completely marble, and the wall beside it filled with paintings, huge vases of flowers. And the smell inside the house was intoxicating, in the best way possible. It was sweet and honeyed and citrusy, like someone had opened oranges in a room where you were baking sugar cookies – only _better._

Second – they were greeted by an army of servants – all of them nice and smiling brightly and really, very attractive people. More attractive than the people Alfred tended to see in England. A very pretty Italian girl smiled at him as she took his suitcase.

“Oh, Miss, it’s fine, I can take it myself.” He didn’t want to let her take it, he felt really out of place – he didn’t like the idea of a servant girl carrying his things. She was a _girl!_ That part of him that Arthur sought to educate as a gentleman was feeling very awkward about the whole thing. The girl put a hand to her mouth and gave a dainty little giggle, as she said something in Italian.

Feliciano heard her, whatever she had said made him smile too. Told her something in rapid, lilting Italian that made her laugh again. The girl did a curtsey in front of Feliciano and turned to Alfred with a pleasant, amused expression on her face.

“ _Vieni con me_ ,” she said warmly and motioned for him to follow her. He stared a bit dumbfounded at her back, for a second too long his eyes remained glued to the white bow that kept her apron tied behind her. The movement of her hips made it sway a bit.

“Go on, Alfred, don’t just sit there.” Arthur urged him. He threw him a quick glance over his shoulder. His guardian had given his jacket to another servant, and his luggage had been taken as well.

“Right. Sure. Yeah.” And he started walking a bit too fast after that girl. He took his steps so quick he almost stumbled over his feet while doing so.

She led him to a bedroom on the end of the corridor. She took out the keys and before she pushed the door opened, she looked over her at Alfred. The corner of her lip was turned upward, her dark eyes had this mischievous glint that he really didn’t know where to place.

The bedroom he had been given was spacious, with French windows that open towards a balcony. It overlooked a lush flower garden and that smell was coming in as well, that sweet honey smell that persisted everywhere. After the servant girl left him alone, he laid down on the bed – it had like ten pillows on it, all of them perfectly fluffed and sheet were some sumptuous material that he wanted to rub his face against.

The general impression was – wow these people were rich. But…Arthur was rich too. Arthur didn’t have things are nice as these. Maybe it was less – wow these people are rich, more like, wow these people have _taste. Class._ This was the kind of room he liked when he imagined sleeping princesses were kept in.

And really, the only thing Alfred could think about, really, was

_“God, I wish Mattie was here.”_

* * *

When Alfred woke up the next morning, he had been surprised to figure out that he had slept soundly thought out the night. All the traveling must have left him more tired that he had anticipated, because the second he closed his eyes he had been lost to world. He also slept far later than he usually would have. 

When he woke up and wondered downstairs, though, it was only Arthur sitting at the kitchen table, with a cup of something that looked surprisingly like…coffee. He saw Alfred coming into the kitchen and instantly started grumbling at him.

“They don’t have tea! Who doesn’t have tea? I suppose it’s my own damn fault, I should have brought my own, but you’d expect them to be prepared! Ugh, how do they drink  this stuff?”

“Hey Arthur, morning to you too.” Alfred said with a yawn and a stretch.

“At least you’re up at a half-decent hour. Feliciano is still asleep. These Italians…” Arthur shook his head, a scowl fixed deeply on his features. “I hate dealing with Italians. Especially since the only competent one is off to Rome. Are you still determined to go to the Uffizi with Feliciano today?”

“Yeah, sure. I might as well, since I’m here. I’m planning on doing the whole sightseeing thing if we’re going to be here for a while.” Alfred said with a shrug.

“You’ll like it. You don’t have to be an art enthusiast to like the Uffizi. I was dragged to see it so many times, it lost a lot of its novelty.” Arthur explained, while taking another reluctant sip out of his coffee. “This truly is foul.” He said with a grimace.

“I never knew you were the type to go to art museums, Artie.” Alfred said down at the table and eyes the wide array of pastries, fruits and jam jars that were spread out in front of him. He took something like a huge, fluffy croissant off a plate a took a bite out of it. Lighter than a French croissant, airier and sweeter. He decided he really liked it.

“I’m not. Not really. I’ve had people drag me to all sorts of Museums, though. The Uffizi is nice. So it the Borghese Gallery in Rome.” There was a pause, in which he looked like he contemplated whether or not to say something, though finally he sighed and added, “As much as I loathe to admit to this, the Louvre is the nicest, though. Bloody Paris, that place is gorgeous. It’s a damn shame it’s full of French people.” He grabbed one of those fluffy croissant thingies that weren’t really croissants, but he stopped mid-way to his mouth and added, “You didn’t hear that from me. ” 

Alfred nodded, amused at the fact that Arthur literally hit all the all check-points for a good British stereotype. Drinks tea? Check. Emotionally stunned? Check. Intense and probably unjustified hatred for the French? Check.

They ate in silence for a few more minutes, until Feliciano bounced into the kitchen with a big smile on this face.

“Buongiorno~ Such a lovely morning we’re having, right? Oh, did you sleep well? Was everything to your liking?” He asked as he took a porcelain cup and poured himself coffee out of a strange looking, metallic…pitcher? Tea-pot? Coffee-somehting-something Italian. They never had coffee back in England, he’d never had any, but the young man brought the cup closer to his face and inhaled deeply, sighing happily at the smell.

“Yeah, everything was awesome. This place is really beautiful.”

“Ah, I’m so glad you think so! You are going to love walking through the city today. You’ll see, it’s all lovely!” 

“Can’t wait.”

They had breakfast in relative silence. Alfred found out that Arthur was here basically to deal with Feliciano’s Grandpa, and he was not really all that pleased that he was left waiting for a few days. Still, apparently it wasn’t a new occurrence – as far as he gathered, the Vargas Patriarch was a very busy man that was called out to deal with important stuff on a regular basis, often at the drop of a hat. He’d asked Arthur over, though, so he wasn’t going to risk his presence here.

Feliciano himself, however, he said he had absolutely no idea why his Grandpa was in Rome, or why he had called Arthur here from England. Alfred believed him, he looked much too ditzy to have any interest in anything related to business and politics, he seemed just content to have to entertain guests.  Arthur wasn’t pleased, not really, but he also seemed to have some experience in dealing with Feliciano. Which was….well. Interesting.

Arthur had adopted Mattie and Alfred close to eight years now, and for all that they both assumed that their guardian had another side to him apart from the boring rich Englishman, Alfred thought he learned more about him in the past couple of days than he could have in a whole year in London. He’d never pegged Arthur as the type of spend multiple Holiday’s in Florence, or Paris or Rome for that matter. He never really thought Arthur went anywhere for pleasure! Weird. Mattie would have been helpful, they could have made some nice theories about it. How did he know Feliciano, though, or his Grandpa?

Alfred sighed. Considering the fact that him and Mattie had spent two whole years trying to find out stuff about Kat and decipher the Mystery of Ivan Braginsky and they still had jack squat in terms of actually useful information…

Sure, at this point, he knew everything from Ivan’s favorite flowers, to his favorite stories, favorite food, how he learned to play the piano just so he could spite some uppity Austrian Lord. Katya liked to talk about her brother and had gotten to the point in which she shared certain harmless information willingly. But it was just that – certain harmless information. There was never anything of substance there.

She painted a very particular kind of picture of life in Russia with her brother. A life that was by no means perfect, but as close to it as it could get. She talked about Sankt Petersburg’s in the summer twilight, about knitting scarves, about how – when Ivan had been young, she’d keep walnuts and dried fruits and berries in the pockets of her clothes, so she could give them to him.

Most of the times she talked about him like flowers grew in his footsteps and the skies cleared when he smiled at them. But then there were times when she talked about him in hushed whispers and hinted at darker things.

Right before he left with Arthur, he’d woken up from another one of his… _dreams._ Really, they were getting more and more frequent, it was harder and harder to get his heart under control, his limbs trembled for longer after he opened his eyes. He thought the escalations of this were due to stress – the upcoming trip, Mattie’s general bitchiness. But God it sucked.

Anyways – he thought he’d feel better if he took a walk. Walking it off seemed to do the trick, made his chest relax, made his muscles stop quivering and got his breathing regulated enough that he could arguably go back to sleep relatively soon after that. He told himself he’s walk around the house a couple of times, that’s it. As luck would have it, he had met Katyusha outside, sitting on the front steps that lead to the porch. She looked like she had been crying, but the tear tracks on her face had dried a long time ago.

“Hey, Kat,” he’d said and sat down next to her. “Bad dream?” He ventured to ask, and she nodded her head without saying anything. “Yeah, me too.”

“I never know what do to with bad dreams,” she said, her voice small and frail, “ When he was young, Ivan very rarely had nightmares. Rather, he had trouble falling asleep, but once he was asleep, his dreams were pleasant.” Katyusha shielded her eyes, and the spill of her hair silver in the moonlight, “He used to tell me about the things he dreamed of, the same thing repeating over and over again. _Fields of gold flowers, set against a bright blue sky._ Peace and warmth, caught in the ever-morning sun.” A shudder ran through her, but she made no move to cover herself. She couldn’t be cold – it wasn’t cold. Or maybe it was, and Alfred was coming down with something, because right about now there was a fever bright hotness in his chest that hadn’t been there before. “He told me he was always waiting for someone to come to him, in his dream, but they never did.” 

Alfred had learned that the best way to deal with Kat when she was in such a mood was to shut up and let her talk. Keep questions short and vague, wait for her to say whatever it was she wanted to say.  


“I think at some point, that changed for him. The waiting become searching. Then chasing, chasing something elusive that never came to him, and then more time had passed and the chasing had followed him into the waking world as well. By the time Ivan had started chasing someone or something or some feeling into the waking world, years and years had gone by.” She sighed sadly, “It think for him, it stopped being peaceful and warm and started being something dark and frantic, when before it had been playful. I never understood, I never did, I am still…struggling with it.”

“You wanted to help him.”

“ _Yes._ So badly. I would have given anything to help him, but… how could I help when Ivan himself had no idea what he was chasing?”

“Is that why you left?”

She bit the nail of her thumb and kept silent for a long moment. 

“You have to understand, _dorogoy_. My brother is very headstrong. And he started chasing summer winds, and got mad when they didn’t hold him back. That kind of chase will destroy anyone, imagine actively seeking it out. Ivan was relentless in causing himself harm, and I did not wish to be there to witness it.”

It had been the most honest answers he ever got from her, the most complex motivation, and it was completely useless because of how vague it was.

But.

Alfred could understand that. Not Kat’s decision to leave, the other part. He could understand someone… _waiting and searching_ for something you couldn’t really place. He knew all about chasing things – chasing them right into the night, into the snow, falling asleep and not knowing how you fell asleep exactly.

He should have told Mattie about it, about his conversation with Katya. But he didn’t. He had looked at this brother next morning, his brother that didn’t want to come to Italy with them. And he kept quiet. Mattie never had problems sleeping, he never had issues with finding rest and peace and all those other things that had always eluded Alfred. Really, he didn’t think Mattie would understand.

Katya hadn’t.

So he had left with Arthur and while they were travelling, whenever he let his mind wonder, he thought about the great dark shadow of a man he never met, but he felt he…understood.

* * *

 

Feliciano insisted they walk. Apparently, “ _The best way to see Florence is on foot!_ ” so the two of them set off together. Arthur had wished them happy sightseeing and crawled back into his metaphorical cave, claiming that the Tuscan heat was too much for him. Old man, definitely.

He had to agree with Feliciano, though, Florence was lovely.

“Ah, this the Piazza della Signoria, Alfred.” Feliciano announced. They were in a huge, open square that was full of people. On all sides, they were surrounded by buildings that were pulled straight out of fairytales, with the kind of architecture that he’d probably had to learn about at some point, but right then and there, his mind was blank. You had statues one side, “See, over there you have a _Judith and Holofernes_ , and _David_. They aren’t the originals, but that’s where they were initially. Ve~ I remember when they were first set up! I thought they were beautiful; who knew after all that time people would like them so much, right? And that’s the Palazzo Vecchio over there and the Loggia dei Lanzi, we can go there tomorrow if you like! There so much to see, so little time~”

Feliciano took him by the hand pulled him straight across the Piazza without really giving him time to take any of it in.  Feliciano took him straight to the imposing building he’d pointed to earlier, made a right turn and got right into a…corridor? It huge thing, an ornate arch above the and once they passed through it, it was like these palace walls were raising straight from the ground, high up and beautiful and imposing. Feliciano took him inside, waving as he passed by people.

“Eh, Signor Vargas! Buongiorno!” He heard that one a lot, though he registered it vaguely. Really, once he got inside, all the rapid fire Italian around him and the crowds of people blurred out, and he took a second to just gawk it.

It was huge, and fucking gorgeous. All high walls, gold leaf and these detailed painting of angel and saint and _whatever_ , super pretty.

“Woah.”

“Bellissimo, si?” Feliciano giggled next to him. “It is always like this! Too see it for the first time~ ”

“Yeah, it’s definitely…something.” Really, he wished he had something more relevant to say, but he’d never been all that good at finding smart stuff to say. That was Mattie’s job.

Feliciano pulled him deeper inside. They went to a room through the first three rooms, spent a lot of time from of religious paintings and stuff from the 13th century. Feliciano talked a lot about international gothic, shade and light and how they outlined body volume, and all those things that Alfred never really bothered to study, and told Mattie it was boring and useless to analyze.

Really.

What was he doing here? Sure it was all beautiful and stuff, but it’s not like he had any idea why it was relevant, and why Feliciano fawned over it. Mattie would understand. He’d love it, he’d probably have a lot to talk about it, but as it was, most that he was able to say was…

“Huh. Cool. Really pretty.”

 And there were so many people there, staring at the old paintings of the Saints that were probably important to them, and their beliefs and all, but for Alfred? The steel refining machines in Arthur’s factories, that process made sense. Arthur opened the hood of his car at some point and explained the parts of its V16 engine and that had he understood. But…here?

And the sheer amount of people that were around, all of them looking at those paintings and speaking in hushed tones, like they _got it_ and he had no idea what he was supposed to get. It was beautiful, yeah…

See, he never had a problem with people. He could walk through Piccadilly Circus no problem, and that was more crowed, but it was just different, and he really wished Mattie had been here with him.

“Hey Feliciano, I’m gonna step out a bit.” He stopped the young man while he was happily ranting away about the imporantance of some kind of pigment.

“Oh. Is everything alright? We can go to the other room if this is not the kind of art you enjoy! There’s so much to see here.”

Yeah, that was the damn problem.

“No, it’s fine. I just want a bit of air, I think I’m still feeling all that travel Artie and I did. I’ll be back before you know it!”

“Buon. Don’t get lost, Alfred!”

He turned around and _bolted._ It hurt his pride to say he was still feeling tired, but it sure as hell was better than to admit he felt too damn stupid to appreciate fine art.

So he hurried down the corridor, rushing to get outside, not looking left or right, or even straight ahead, his gaze was firmly planted on his feet. Really, it was bound to happen.

He walked straight into something solid and decidedly human, collided into another person with a ‘ _oomph’._ Stuff fell. Paper scattered.  

“ _Shit._ Shit. I’m so sorry, really really sorry, I didn’t see you there!” he bent down to start picking up stuff before he looked up, realized that he spoke in English and….like, how do you say sorry in Italian?

“It is alright. I was not paying attention either.” And…that clicked something. English, with an accent. Not the Feliciano inflections and rise and falls, but hard ‘R’s and throaty vowels he came to associate with Katya.

He looked up then, found himself face to face with a blond man that was really overdressed for the weather crouching next to him, gathering papers.

“You’re Russian,” the observation slipped before he had to filter it. Mattie would have given him the evil eye for it. But the man didn’t scoff at it, he blinked these huge violet eyes at Alfred a couple of times before his lips quirked.

“ _Da_ , I am.” He sounded very amused. Alfred felt his cheeks heat up.

“Yeah, I have a friend that’s Russian; she has the same accent you do, so I figured it out.” Papers were all gathered and the man slipped them inside this big leather folder that he had been carrying. They both got up from their crouched position and Alfred just kinda found himself staring…up. “You’re…tall.” Understatement. Alfred himself was pretty tall. He never really had to look up at someone anymore.

“Da, I am that too.” Way, way too amused, he followed that remark with a chuckle. “Are you alright?” He asked with a quirk of an eyebrow. “You seem…” he was probably looking for a word that was appropriate for the situation, “…lost.”

Alfred winced at that. Well, lost was still better than…damn, what was that word Mattie used describe the feeling of being ‘a skittish, jittery mess because you got spooked by fine Italian Art’? Frazzled. Better than frazzled.

“Yeah, I’m not lost, I was just going out to get some air or something. It’s just that it’s a bit…” He trailed off, made a motion with his hand that he hoped encompassed the whole of whatever it was.

“It can be somewhat overwhelming. Places like this most often are.” He still had that smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The man turned slightly, motioned to the direction that Alfred had been heading and added, “Come, I will walk you out, if you want. Best not run into someone else. They might be carrying something more important and breakable; we wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to! You were walking the other way, and I don’t want to…”

“I insist. I am in no rush. Come.” He jerked his head in the direction of the exit. Alfred felt a wave of gratitude washing over him. If the tall Russian man wanted to walk with him, he wasn’t about to say no.

“Thanks.” He found himself smiling. The guy had a very calming presence, and with his accent and all he felt much more familiar. Which was weird, but he chalked it up to being so close to Katya for such a long time. He definitely knew more about Russia, of all places, than he did about Giotto. They started walking together, at a slower pace than Alfred had started off.

“First time in Italy?”

“First time _anywhere._ ” Alfred said with a laugh. “Well, that’s not exactly true, I guess. I was born in the States, but I moved to England when I was a kid. I dunno how much that counts. But yeah, first time in Italy.”

“It counts. Leaving home is always something that is worth noting.”

“Yeah, I guess. Do you live here? Or are you on vacation?”

“Neither, unfortunately. I am here to meet a…friend.” He said the world like it didn’t fit there properly. “I am, however, too early, and he has the habit of being very late.”

He had the same accent Katya did, but that’s where the similarities stopped. Even after two years of living with them, Katya still spoke slowly, like she was always choosing her words very carefully.

“Your English is very good.” Probably a commentary in the rude category, but oh well. Tall Russian man didn’t seem bothered by it, though, he chuckled again.

“Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of leaving Russia was the fact that very few people in Europe speak Russian. I had to adjust.” He glanced sideways at Alfred and asked, “What about you? Did your _friend_ teach you Russian?”

“Hah, no. No chance, I couldn’t even get the hang of French. No way am I gonna learn a whole new alphabet for that.” He said with a laugh. “She had more success with my brother. Me? I think she was just happy when she got me pronouncing _Ivan Tsarevitch_ properly.” That made the guy falter in his steps a bit, probably caught by surprise, but it got a laugh out of him, and it carried over in his voice when he started talking.

“I see. So she told you fairytales.”

“Ugh, that sounds too childish. _Stories_ , she told me _stories_. A lot of them were cool.” Alfred gave a shrug, though he felt his cheeks heat up again. Goddamnit. He didn’t know why he felt like he had to justify anything in front of a guy he never met before and likely wouldn’t ever meet again. They were already at the entrance. “Really though, the one thing I always found funny was that all the protagonists ever were called _Ivan._ It made me think every man in Russia was called Ivan.” He rolled his eyes. “By Russian story-telling logic, you’re probably called Ivan too.”

He laughed a bit, but stopped when he saw that the guy wasn’t laughing, he was leveling him with a very flat, decidedly _un_ amused look that made Alfred pause. And then it made sense.

“Oh. _Oh_. Shit.” He meant to stop his laugh in his throat, but it only made it burst through his nose in the form of a very snort. “You really are an Ivan, aren’t you?”

“It’s a traditional Russian name. ” Ivan scoffed at him and stepped outside into the sun.

“Hey, it’s a fine name. It’s a fairytale name, right?” He grinned as he followed after him. God, it was hot outside, wasn’t he boiling inside that huge coat? “I’m Alfred, and there aren’t really any heroes called Alfred at this point.”

Ivan turned to him and at least he looked appeased by that. He definitely stood out in the crowd of people, most of them tanned and golden and glowy in the warm Italian light. Ivan was pale like he never saw a day of sunshine in his life, unless it gleamed off a patch of ice somewhere in Siberia, and with his ashen hair and the look he had going on for him, he gave off coolness. But not _coolness_ in the sense of _awesome,_ more like in the literal sense.

Still, he smiled as he extended his hand towards Alfred.

“It is nice to meet you, Alfred.” Jesus, gloves too?

“It’s nice to meet you too, Ivan.” He gave a strong shake and maybe held on a second more than he should. When he realized his mistake he dropped his hand quickly and resisted the urge to slip it in the pocket of his coat.

“Are you feeling better now?” Ivan asked kindly. Alfred blinked at him, took a second to consider it.

“Actually, yeah, I do feel better.” He was surprised by it, but it was definitely the effect that his small talk with Ivan had on him. It was just enough to take his mind off the feelings that had been rumbling in his head. Now that he thought about it, it seemed so silly.

“I’m glad. Would you like to stay outside, or do you think you want to go back inside the gallery? While it can be overwhelming, I do think there are a lot of things that you might enjoy inside.”

“I dunno. I came here with someone – someone very excited about art that knows a lot about it.” He said with a shrug, “I’m not sure I get a lot of it.” He admitted. First impulse was to look down at his feet, but he caught himself quickly. That was such a Mattie thing to do, he raised his eyes and met Ivan’s with a smile.

“Ah, I understand. You came here with someone that started explaining all the technicalities of it.”

“Yeah. I had no idea what to expect, to be honest. I just wanted to see the _Primavera_.” Alfred said, and he hoped he didn’t look as awkward as he felt while saying it. It was literally the only thing he was really interested in seeing in the whole gallery, and he was now absolutely sure that it was some kind of insult to the place to admit to it.

“And did you get the chance to see it?” With his voice a bit lower, but looking and sounding very entertained by the whole conversation.

“No.” Even Alfred could hear the disappointment in his own voice. A laugh rumbled somewhere in Ivan’s chest and he turned back towards the Gallery. He started walking inside without waiting for Alfred to follow him. He was just left there, standing a bit confused until he kicked his own ass into gear and took a couple of too-quick steps to catch up to Ivan.

“Where are you going?” _You just left me there_! He wanted to add but considering that their whole acquaintance was now probably reaching the twenty minute mark he decided not to.

“You followed, good.” Ivan said. He glanced in Alfred’s direction, but kept walking determinedly down ahead. “I am going to show you the _Primavera_. After that, you can go back to your friend, but if it is the only thing you wanted to see here, you should enjoy it on your own terms, without being distracted by anything else.”

He followed Ivan straight towards a room that was painted white, where the _Primavera_ was sitting on the opposite wall. Bigger than Alfred had expected it to be, fucking beautiful and he walked closer so he could get a better look at it. How were you supposed to look at it, or interpret it? From left to right, or right to left? He’d read something about it at some point, really but…

His eyes ran over the Mercury on the far left, and the naked Graces dancing next to him. Oh, and Venus, and the fat little cupid above her. Even Alfred knew that the guy who painted this was really famous for painting all kinds of Venuses. Then there was the flower Lady – Flora? – and…

Chloris, with her mouth open, flowers spilling from between her lips. Golden hair, clothed in flimsy cloth, eye staring up. Zephyrus, deathly pale, long dark hair, breathing the west winds. He had hands about her – his skin was bone white, standing in contrast with Chloris’. Alfred thought he looked cold, not warm spring breeze but more like the chill of winter. Did he feel cold against the skin? Was that what startled her?

“What do you think?”

Ivan asked. Alfred wasn’t really sure when the man had sneaked up on him, or if he had been there the whole time and Alfred just didn’t register his presence. He looked at Ivan, then back at the painting, trying to figure out what he wanted to say.

“I...” he started. Stopped. Frowned. Considered. What did he want to say? How was he supposed to begin putting it into words, if he wasn’t sure what he was going to say in the first place? “I was thinking…how do you know? Zephyrus and Chloris, I mean. The story. Every time Katya makes those little pink meringue things…”

“Zefirs?”

“Yes, zefirs. Every time she makes those, I think about the story of how Zephyr steals Chloris. Was thinking – was it a kind of love at first sight shit? It doesn’t look like it.” He frowned at the painting, not really sure where he was going with this, but saying it out loud made it easier than thinking it. “Like – sure, you....and how can…ugh.” It was frustrating. “No, it’s not about the whole love-at-first sight shit that gets me. It just…how can you make the decision so quickly, that you want something and then…”  
  
“I think it require a good deal of conviction, Alfred. I am sure you will understand it better…”

“Don’t you say when I’m older, I hate it when people say that. ” Alfred said, maybe more harshly than he meant to.  He turned to Ivan and looked him straight in the face, hoping it would get his point across better, hoping maybe he’d grasp the point of it.“I know all about conviction, Ivan, and the things I would gladly die for. I _know_ that. It’s the…”

“Living with it?”

“Yeah. Living with it. Deciding on something like this and then sticking to it, I guess? Do you just choose once? Do you make the choice every day, that you’re going to _keep_ them? What if you get bored or…shit, sometimes I think food tastes good the first few times I try it and then I get sick of it and stop eating it entirely.” He found himself shaking his head. “And really – what about her? Strange man swoops from the sky and whisks you away – did she try to escape? Did she just accept it? Was she happy that the decision was take out of her hands, was there any decision in the first place? Greeks and Romans were all about fate, right? But do your choices influence it, like set it in motion, or something? Or does that shit just…happen?”

He looked back at the painting, at Chloris with her mouth spilling flowers. He thought about – King Arthur, Once and Future King as he was, did he make a _choice_ to pull that sword out the rock? Was Napoleon fated to become Emperor, or did he just say fuck it, grabbed Europe by the balls and said I’m owning this shit now? Did Arthur find him in the snow because he was supposed to be there, or did it just happen?

He looked at Ivan, thinking – why am I saying any of this? He wasn’t expecting any sort of answer, it’s not like he had a conversation about it before with anyone else. But there was something that wanted to say it out, to ask –

“Do you search for it, or do you wait for it to come to you?” There was no ‘it’ in question here. But Ivan blinked, looked at him like he had just fallen straight out of the sky. He didn’t say anything at all, but Alfred thought, when their eyes met, that there was _something_ , that maybe, really, the man had understood what he was asking.

“I keep thinking about this story Kat told me – with the Russian Winter Princess that was kidnapped by the prince. She bargained her son to Death for her freedom. That’s a _choice._ ” He said, and grinned at Ivan.

“What did you say?” and there was a breathlessness in his voice that startled Alfred, like Alfred had punched the air out of his lungs with the last thing he said. _Push or retreat?_ Retreat, would have been Mattie’s answer. Change the subject. But he wasn’t Mattie.

“The story with the Winter Princess. She gets stolen in the knight by a prince. He put…”

“Golden shackles on her wrists,” Ivan continued, like he knew exactly what he was talking about, but Alfred wasn’t surprised. Katya had told him that story, it was probably some common Russian legend or something.

“Yeah. Burning chains, blessed with sunlight. That’s fate right there, ain’t it? But she escaped him. Bargained her son away, yeah, but she made a choice. Died, but she couldn’t very well keep living with it, right?”  

Ivan was just, like, _looking_ at him and Alfred though that maybe he said something wrong. Maybe he did. After all, they were complete strangers, and he had no idea what really possessed him to word vomit in front of a man he just met and he’d probably never see before – maybe it was just that. Ivan had no idea who he was, he had no idea who Ivan was and the chance that they’d see each other again was minimal, so it was just because of _that_ , he could tell him. No expectations and shit, Ivan didn’t even have to understand and he wouldn’t be disappointed.

Ivan, though, maybe he did? He looked like he understood something, though what it was or how it came there, or if it was really what Alfred was trying to say.

“Dying for things is easy, though. You die once and that it, but then how do you…?”

How did his Mom choose to leave him and Mattie? All those people at the orphanage, how did they choose him, but then just as easily they choose to leave him alone, because he couldn’t choose to leave Mattie? How could Katya leave her brother?

How could he leave Mattie back in England? How could Mattie stay?

He took a deep breath, thought really hard about something to say but he couldn’t come up with anything, no matter how half-assed. Ivan wasn’t saying anything, and Alfred really appreciated it right then, because he wasn’t sure what how he was feeling and why. Strictly on a physical level, he felt too hot.

“Alfred.” Ivan called out his name it snapped him out of his daze. His eyes had wandered over to the painting again, but he wasn’t really seeing it. Ivan’s focused his attention again, and he turned to the other man. He straightened his back, looked him in the eye – all too serious for a second there, but he  couldn’t keep that up. He snorted a laugh, and found himself relaxing again. Weird Russian powers, calming effects and all. Maybe that’s why he liked to be around Katya too, though Ivan probably had some evolved form of it if it was taking effect so quickly.

Right.

Suddenly he felt…shy, which was new. Embarrassed about his whole outburst and right now he knew for a fact he was blushing, and he really, really hoped he didn’t look as helpless and hopeless as Mattie did. For one, Mattie usually hid his face when he blushed, and while the instinct was there, he was really, really determined NOT to do it.

“Alfreeed! ALFRED! Where are you?”

“Shit.” He muttered. He’d forgotten about Feliciano. Completely, and he probably lost enough time with Ivan already. He sprang to the exit of the Botticelli room, yelling, “I have to go,” over his shoulder. Right before he took a right turn into the main corridor, he glanced behind and found Ivan looking at him over his shoulder. The tall man smiled at him and nodded. Alfred grinned back, waved at him, and ran straight across the corridor to meet Feliciano.

* * *

 

It followed him the rest of the day – a little ball of warmth in his chest that he never felt before. Or really, he felt it before, but he didn’t know what it was or how it got there.

 

* * *

 


	6. Sealing Fate

 

* * *

Alfred went to bed early that night – Feliciano had been worried about him, told Arthur that Alfred was probably sick and he didn’t really protest that much about it. That in turn made Arthur worry, so he suggested that maybe Alfred was coming down with something and he should rest. The simple fact that Alfred did start yelling at him was enough for Arthur to come to the conclusion that Alfred was really fucking dying.

Alfred wasn’t.

He just…felt weird.

It was nothing he could explicitly place, just a general air of malaise and displeasure. So he laid down in bed – closed his eyes and thought to himself – What would Mattie say if he were here? Well, first of all, Mattie would have been super excited about the city tour and the Gallery. Which, Alfred himself had to admit – it had been pretty damn cool. Apart from his Uffizi Freak out, but that had turned out well enough.

He met Ivan.

Ivan. He sighed at the thought of the older man – it had been nice to talk to him. Truth be told – Alfred probably made a bit of a fool of himself there, but he had been really patient and kind to him. Katya was like that too, maybe it was generally a Russian sort of thing? Were they just freakishly nice people over there?

The weird, out of place feeling followed him in his sleep as well.

Alfred fell asleep and woke up – realizing instantly that he wasn’t really awake and that he was dreaming. He was at the Uffizi, but the Uffizi was empty. It was just him wondering down the halls, going from room to room. All the pictures of the Saints felt like they were starting at him. There was also a biting, cold wind that urged him forward, like he instinctively knew that if he would move forward he would feel better, he’d find a room that was safe and warm.

He’d found it – the Botticelli room, with the Primavera, but instead of them being in an orange groove, Mercury and Venus and the Graces, they were back home, in Arthur’s garden. They weren’t surrounded by blooming orange trees, but by the strawberry bushes that grew behind the Kirkland mansion. It was all white flowers and small red strawberries.

Alfred felt that small ball of warmth in his chest, the one that had been there for the whole day, and it felt like it was moving up, tickling and scratching at his throat. He started coughing like _crazy_. There was something in his throat that he had to dislodge, and he coughed until he felt it move.

He coughed up small flowers, with white and pink petals, still on the thorny vine they had grown on. He didn’t have time to think about what it was, what it meant, until the coughing started up again. And coughing and coughing, the vines and the flowers and the leaves, and he couldn’t spit them out, they were stuck in his chest, but unfolding and spilling from his lips with each hack that wracked his body.

Then it stopped, stopped completely and the vines with the flowers where gone. His throat felt raw and Alfred _really_ wanted to wake up now. 

Change, change, _change_ , goddamnit, _change_.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Fuck.

He opened his eyes but he wasn’t in bed.

He was him, Alfred Kirkland, sixteen and five-feet-nine, and he was behind the orphanage, by the dumpsters, in the snow.

 

* * *

 

Alfred woke up with a gasp, sitting up in bed.

Bed. Not his bed. Vargas house. Florance. Yeah. Okay.

His heart was pounding and his chest fucking _burned._ He was gasping for breath like he ran for fucking miles.

Alfred was cold, he was trembling all over. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why the fuck was it so fucking cold, it was September, but it was fucking Italy, and it had been hot and sunny for the whole day.

He grabbed the comforter and wrapped it around himself. There was a cold breeze coming into the room, and he turned towards the potential source of chill. The balcony.

Yeah, there it was.

The French windows were wide open. Alfred frowned – he could have sworn they had been closed before he went to bed, but maybe there had been some sort of freaky burst of wind that had opened them? Why hadn’t he woken up at that, he wasn’t a generally such a deep sleeper? He should get up to close them, but first he had to stop shaking and get his heart to stop wanting to burst out of his chest.

Goddamnit, there were bad dreams, and there were _bad dreams._ This was definitely in the second category.

Why did the inside of his chest feel like it was cooking him alive, while his skin was goosebumpy and cold? Whatever.

He took a few deep breaths, until the gross stickiness of his dream left him and his body temperature felt normal again.

Alfred made to get out of bed, but the second his feet touched the floor he grimaced at the cold of it. Damn – Who knew Italy got so cold during the night? Why was he so cold? Alfred was never cold, not even in January, it was one of the reasons he made fun of Mattie and Artie for wearing fucking slippers all the time, he never got cold enough for this to be an issue with him.

Okay, he could do this.

He got out of bed and walked towards the open doors of the balcony. Alfred grabbed both doors at the same time, wanting to seal out the cold as quickly as possible. He sighed as they connected and fit together and his breath – it came out in a white fog, like condensation, like it did in the middle of the motherfucking winter.

It startled him, just how cold did it get here during the night?

Cold enough for you to start seeing your breath, it seemed.

He went back toward the bed, looked at the clock that was on the bedside table  - 4:35 AM, so at least he’d gotten a few hours of sleep. They had been absolute crap, but at least he’d gotten them, because there’s no way in hell he was going to brave another round of sleep after this shit.

So what was he supposed to do?

He grabbed the damn dressing gown that Arthur had insisted he pack and slipped it on. Alfred had scoffed when the man had insisted on it, it was such an _English_ thing to do, but right now he was grateful for it. Not that he’d admit to it.

Right. What now? His room was cozy and all, but very basic. There was a wardrobe and a nice, lacquered desk – but in the drawers you had blank paper and writing utensils, Alfred had already checked. The bedside table didn’t hold anything interesting, and the shelves of books were full of books, but they held little interest for Alfred. They were also in Italian, so it’s not like he could read them even if that would have been his thing.  All in all, nice but a guest room that didn’t really hold anything interesting.

So exploring – yeah, that sounded good.

He got out of his room and the second he came into the hallway, he noticed that the temperature was instantly several degrees higher. Damn French windows.

Alfred considered his options – when in doubt, the kitchen was always a good option. Maybe there was some left over pasta from dinner? The Vargas family had one of those brand new refrigerators that was bound to hold something interesting.

He fumbled in the dark, down the staircase, careful not to stumble and fall down. Alfred made it downstairs and to the kitchen quickly and turned on the light. The room was bathed in the soft light, and…well.

The Vargas family’s kitchen had this stained glass wall with a matching door that took you directly from the kitchen to the veranda at the back of the villa. Probably to make easier access for the moments in which they decided to eat outside. But what made Alfred pause was the fact that the door was wide open.

Probably the wind?

But then, the temperature inside the kitchen was really pleasant. The breeze coming from outside was cooling, but no way was it the biting, frosty chill that had frozen Alfred to the bone when he had woken up.

Weird. Weird. Weird Italian weather.

He walked over to the door to close it, but startled when a voice behind him called out to him –

“Signore?” Alfred turned around sharply, feeling like he had caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “Que cosa fai?” It was the pretty servant girl that had shown him to his room the other day. She was looking at him questioningly – dressed in a long, white nightdress, with her dark hair in disarray and sleepiness evident on her features.

“Sorry I woke you up,” Alfred said, raising his hands and smiling at her apologetically. What was the word for sorry? He definitely knew this one, “Erm… _scusi?_ ”

She giggled daintily and started walking towards him.

“ _Sei carino_.” She said, her voice was soft and low, and stopped in front of Alfred with a smile on her face. Alfred felt himself heat up uncomfortably under her gaze. She had that glint in her eyes again, the one that he couldn’t exactly place. “ _L'ho pensato così da quando ti ho visto_.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” he said with a sigh. Did she understand? She didn’t seem troubled by their language barrier. So close to him, he felt she smelled like the house smelled, honey sweet and  she looked younger than he’d originally assumed. Probably only a couple of years older than him, but that’s it.

“ _Ho voglia di baciarti_ ” she announced, and whatever Alfred wanted to say to that, he didn’t get the chance to because her mouth collided with him.

Her mouth…she….

She kissed him!

She put her hands on his cheeks, and pressed his mouth to his and _kissed_ him.

It really only lasted a second, and then she looked at his with her dark eyes mischievous. Alfred  though, his mind was absolutely blank. She smiled at him, her hands still cradling his cheeks, ran her thumb over his cheekbone and made to close the distance between them again and that’s when Alfred sorta…

Freaked.

He took a step back from her so quickly he almost stumbled over his feet, and almost bolted out of the kitchen. _What the fuck? Who just kisses people like that_? He went up the stairs quickly, without the care he took when went down. He went back to his room, at least it wasn’t cold anymore. Alfred closed the door behind him, and leaned on the door, let his head rest against the wood. 

He had no idea what her name was. Pretty Italian lady, yeah. A bit older than him. She had dark eyes and dark hair. He didn’t speak a lick of Italian and he didn’t know what she said to him. Didn’t know her name. Did she know his?

Alfred scrunched his eyes tightly, shook his head. He took off his dressing gown – didn’t need it anymore. He walked over to the bed and slipped into it, the sheets were now pleasantly cool and he was grateful for that he didn’t have to face any more of that freaky chill. Alfred closed his eyes, hoped he would puke anymore flowers in his dreams, willed himself to fall asleep without thinking of anything in particular.

It was really hard, though.

Alfred had never been kissed before.

 

* * *

 

Florence was tiny compared to London, obviously, and nowhere near as crowded. However, it was way more confusing, the streets foreign and the language incomprehensible. Still, Alfred decided he liked Italians. They all seemed like cool people, most of them smiled freely and were eager to chat. He would have engaged, sure, but English wasn’t their strong suit.

So it was his third day in Florence and he was kinda…lost.

Yesterday, Arthur had announced at breakfast that he wanted to go to the Duomo.  The church apparently had a really fancy name, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, which was quite mouthful for Alfred. Feliciano had been really excited to take them there, but then again, the man seemed to get overly excited about everything.

Alfred liked him.

The request had seemed weird to him, Arthur wasn’t religious or anything. In fact, until now, Alfred could just about bet that his guardian didn’t have one religious bone in his body. It had always seemed that the man was much too pragmatic for that. Still, if Arthur wanted to go to a church, to the church they went.

The inside of the Duomo was fucking huge, and there was soft light pouring everywhere from the stained glass windows. All the kind, soft faced angels and saints where staring at them from the frescos and statues, and Alfred was just staring at them, eyes moving up and down over the paintings. He really was enjoying it.

Feliciano was really surprisingly quiet, which in this case was a bonus because Alfred didn’t think he could take another history lesson or art lesson here. Though maybe that wasn’t the point, they were in a church, right? It wasn’t about art, it was about worship, or something like that. The man was sitting at one of the pews, maybe…praying?

That was a strange though. Praying. To pray. Alfred never prayed anymore. The concept of it was…well.

Back at the at the orphanage, they had a timeslot dedicated to praying, so they each put their hand together, put their heads down and said a little prayer, following the words spoken by the caregivers. He never really thought about the words, they just had to say them. So yeah, God and stuff. He remembered that he was always getting slapped over the head, because he never really had the patience to sit in that position for long.

When they moved to London – there had been no more praying, Arthur wasn’t the kind to impose something like that. Thinking of Arthur, Alfred turned to him to see what he was doing and he…didn’t see him anywhere. He looked for the Englishman’s blond hair, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere in the cathedral. So Alfred went outside, and sure enough, there he was sitting on the steps that led up to the Duomo.

Curious, Alfred approached the man’s tense back and sat next to him.

“Hey Artie, why you out here?” Alfred said. Looking at him, there was a really pronounced frown on his features, his lips set into a grimace.

“See one church, see them all, Alfred. I don’t want to spend too much time inside.”

“Really? You’re the one that wanted to come here, though.” Alfred reminded him, feeling confused about his reasons. He didn’t necessary expect an answer at that, Arthur had the habit of telling him to shut up if he didn’t want to offer explanations. Still, Alfred had to ask.

Surprisingly though, this time, Arthur didn’t tell him to shut up. Instead, the man sighed, suddenly looking really tired and really old. The Italian sunlight was soft and warm, but it made the shadows on Arthur face stand out starkly.

“I think I had a moment of nostalgia that I wanted to indulge in.” He paused, but it was the kind of pause in which people started to think about what they wanted to say. _Don’t ask, let him think about it. Gently encourage_ – Mattie’s voice in his head said. He’d done well in drilling those rules into Alfred’s head when they set up their Katya-info-gathering plan.

So he held his tongue, even though he was curious. A few more moments of silence, and then…

“I used to…have a friend. He loved visiting churches, for whatever odd reason. I think it’s because he lived down the street from Notre Dame, the bells must have knocked something out in his head.” Arthur shook his head, but there was a smile on his face. Arthur rarely smiled, when he did he looked younger. This time, though, it just looked…sad. “I came here with him too many times, he was always fawning over this place. I think he liked the romance – the Petrarch and Dante history of it.”

He paused, and the silence stretched enough that Alfred though maybe he should ask something? But then, Arthur started again, his voice sounding much gentler that Alfred had ever remembered hearing it.

“Francis used to say – that he wanted to get married here, and buy a house somewhere near the city. Probably complain about Italian wine not being as good as French wine, I don’t bloody know. Recite sonnets in his free time. Good plan, no one in their right mind would marry him and move to Paris.” Arthur gave a sharp bark of laughter, but it was devoid of humour.

“Thought you like Paris.”

“Tsk. Liking something – really, even loving something – it’s not the same as wanting to see it 24/7. And really Alfred, there’s a point where you learn that loving something does not exclude the possibility of hate. You can be in love with someone and still hate them.”

That made Alfred blink, and he turned to Arthur.

“Who are you talking about?”

“What?”

“Who are you talking about? You were talking about Paris, but then you said…someone. You can love someone and still hate them. So…” Alfred felt really clever for catching that, really. Mattie would have been proud. It had to be someone, right? “Who are you talking about?”

Arthur seemed taking aback by the whole line of questioning, and Alfred grinned. Jackpot.

“No one,” the Englishman replied, with a tone that Alfred was really familiar with. It was Arthur’s not talking about this anymore tone. But Alfred wasn’t about to just back off now that he was onto something,

“Come on, Artie. Don’t be like that. Tell me, tell me. Did you, like…have a French lover? Was she pretty?” His eyes grew large as a possibility came to his mind, “Did your French friend – Francis? Did he stole her from you?”

“Alfred, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But oh my god, that was totally a lie, because Arthur was blushing.

“No way, that’s what happened, right? Did he marry her here, is that why you’re here all moody and prissy?”

Arthur crossed his hands over his chest and honest to god, huffed in displeasure. His nostrils were positively flaring with anger. Alfred was enjoying this way too much, though he did know that if Mattie had been here he’d have kicked him in the shin. Mattie had a strict limit on how much he’d push people into talking about shit. Alfred thought it was absolutely fair to use any kind of means to get what you wanted.

“No.” Arthur said with resolution. Then, his shoulders relaxed slightly, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “No, Francis didn’t steal anyone. He didn’t get married, either.”

“Why didn’t you? Ever get married, I mean.” Might as well go all the way with the questions.

At that, Arthur turned towards him with his eyes blazing with some kind of emotion that Alfred couldn’t name. It wasn’t anger, but for the life of him, he had no idea what it was. Maybe it had been the question that took it all a bit too far, because one moment, Arthur had been sitting on the steps, the other, he got up quickly. He dusted himself off, looked at Alfred.

“This conversation is over. ”

With that, Arthur turned back towards the Duomo and went back in, leaving Alfred on steps, confused and feeling altogether cheated. For the rest of the day, Arthur had been unusually quiet and moody, so that left Alfred and Feliciano to talk about whatever. All together, yesterday could have been better, but could also have been worse.

Which led Alfred to today.

This morning, Feliciano had told him that his grandfather was going to be back from Rome, and he had to pick him up from the train station.  Arthur offered to go as well – “The sooner we can finish things here, the better.” He had said.

So that left Alfred…well…free to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, which sounded like a lovely plan – in theory. He could walk around, explore, try out some more of that fancy ice-cream.

He really didn’t count on getting lost. Super lost.

See – Feliciano had taken him twice into the city, each time they took the same streets to the to that big fancy piazza were the Duomo and the Uffizi were. Alfred though – well, I’ll just take the same streets, go there, find something to do when I get there.

The plan had been – buy gelato, walk around a bit, maybe take a walk down the banks for the Arno. That seemed like an idea. But somewhere down the line, he took a wrong turn and ended up on street that he didn’t know.

Not much of an issue  - right? He just had to go back down the street and get back where he needed to. The problem was, though, that he didn’t really know how to ask for directions, and whenever he approached a local to ask “Do you speak English?” The Answer came back to him in rapid fire Italian.

Right.

He hadn’t given up hope of ice cream and walk-down-the-Arno and shit, but right about now, he would settle with just finding out where the fuck he was. Alfred sighed and ran a hand through his hair, when someone grabbed him by the shoulder. He jerked out of their grasp on instinct, and turned around sharply to be met with three young men, all wearing those fitted black shirts that made Arthur turn his nose.

Fascists.

 _“Ehi, ragazzo, non sembra che tu venga da queste parti”_ One of them said. They were all wearing matching smirks on their faces, looking altogether too smug in those uniforms of theirs. Young, though, eighteen, nineteen. No older than twenty. Maybe they knew English?

“Oh, right. I’m lost.” Alfred said, putting on his best smile, hoping he’d have some success with them. “Maybe you guys can help me out. Do you speak English?”

The Italians looked at themselves, one of them gave a sharp bark of laughter and said something to the others.

_“Lui è Inglese”_

“No, non hai sentito il suo accento?  Lui è Americano.”

Alfred at least understood what ‘Americano’ meant. But they didn’t seem that inclined to help him. Actually, they were looking at him in a way that made him feel really uncomfortable.

“Yeah, American. Americano. I’m lost. Do you think you can help me get somewhere? I think if you show me the way to the Uffizi, I can probably handle it from there.”

_“Gli americani hanno soldi. ”_

_“Chiedigli se ha documenti. Possiamo portarlo dentro se non lo fa.”_

_“Dovremmo prenderlo in ogni caso. Capo si divertirà molto con lui.”_

Alfred had no idea what they were talking about, but clearly they were in no mood to help him out. Fine, he didn’t like the looks they were giving him anyways, and Arthur had specifically said he should stay away from the blackshirts.

“Okay, boys, so I don’t think you know English. That’s alright.” He said with a grin, and held up his hands that he hoped conveyed ‘no hard feelings.’ “I’ll just go. There’s bound to be someone around here that can help me out.”

He made to turn around and leave them alone, but one of them grabbed him by the hand and harshly pulled him back.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Let me go.” That pissed him off. You don’t just grab people!

“Cosa fai, ragazzo?” The one that had grabbed him was taller than the other ones, looked at him with a very smug, very mean glint in his eyes.  “Non ti è permesso andartene finché non te lo diciamo.”

“Bastard! Let me go!” He jerked his hand out the man’s grasp and made to take a step back, but the guy grabbed him again and started yelling something in Italian in Alfred’s face.

“Ragazzo, dove pensi di essere? America?” He got all up in his face and Alfred struggled in his grasp, “Qui ascolti e fai ciò che diciamo”

“Like hell I’m letting bully me around. Bastard.” Alfred didn’t make a conscious choice about what to do, his body just reacted and before he knew it, his free hand was balled into a fist, raised to strike. 

It never connected with the young Italian’s jaw, because all of a sudden there was a very strong grip around his wrist, and he was jerked back from the Italian with such force he stumbled backwards into someone. Alfred instinctively turned towards whoever it was, ready to yell at them too if it turned out to be another blackshirt dude, and…it…wasn’t.

It was Ivan.

The tall Russian man had stopped him from punching the Italian, and honestly, Alfred should have been grateful – he probably couldn’t he have taken all three of them, though that was a blow to his ego to admit. But as angry as he was, he really didn’t want to think about that. He glared.

“What the hell, Ivan?”

“ _Alfred, do not._ ” The tone in his voice didn’t book any sort of argument, and really, that wasn’t normally something that would make Alfred shut up, but the look on his face _was_. Ivan hadn’t even looked at him, he was looking straight at the Italians that had been rude to Alfred.

“Signore, questo è tuo ami?” One of them asked. Not the tall one that had grabbed Alfred, that was one looking at them like he wanted to rip them up with his teeth.

“ _Sì. c'è un problema_?” Alfred took like half a second to register the fact that Ivan had replied to them in Italian. There was still that throatiness to it, that he came to associate with Russian, but even heavily accented as it was, it was still Italian.

Fuck, of course he knew Italian. He probably knew French as well.

The men were looking at each other, probably trying to figure out what they were supposed to do. While Alfred probably had looked lost and kinda out of place when he had been trying to figure out which way to go, looking like he was easy to mess with, Ivan loomed over them with this whole self-assuredness that probably put them off entirely. And the Russian looked _angry,_ like there was this cold glint in his eyes that was more than a little bit scary.

Alfred liked to think that he, personally, wouldn’t have cowered away from it. The young men in their dark uniforms didn’t exactly cower either, but they also lost the smugness on their faces.

“ _Signore, abbiamo chiesto i suoi documenti e si è rifiutato di offrirli_.”

“ _Lui non parla italiano_. _Sono sicuro che l'hai capito_.” Ivan scoffed at them.

“ _Ma signore_ …”

“ _No. Dimmi: cosa vuoi_? _Lui è mio amico, dovevamo incontrarci e io lo stavo aspettando.  Lui è mio amico, dovevamo incontrarci e io lo stavo aspettando.”_ Ivan rolled his eyes and took something out of the pocket of his coat. Passport? And wallet? “ _Ti assicuro, nessuno di noi è qui illegalmente.”_ He opened his wallet, took out what looked like a lot of money and put it in his passport before handing it to the Italian that he had been talking to previously.

The young man looked at Ivan’s passport, his eyes going wide when he saw the money inside.

“ _Signore, questo è_ …”

“ _Presumo che tutto sia in ordine_?”

“ _Si, va bene_.”

He pocketed the money and gave Ivan his passport back. He turned towards his friends, said something in a low voice, but the tone of it was rushed and angry. Still, they must had reached a conclusion because he ushered them away. Alfred stuck his tongue out at them as they were walking away. Besides him, Ivan chuckled.

He turned to look at the man, expecting to find him with that amused glint in his eyes again, but when Ivan’s gaze met his, he was only leveled with a carefully blank face. Alfred wasn’t fooled by it, though, he gave the Russian a big grin.

“Hi.” Ivan’s serious face didn’t last too long, he just chuckled again and shook his head.

“Say thank you.” The man said, quirking an eyebrow towards Alfred.

“No way, why should I thank you?”

“Because I saved you.”

“I could have handled it.” Alfred said, crossing his arms over his chest. Okay, sure, he might have gotten into some deep shit with them, but no need to admit to that. Ivan only hummed, managing to sound entertained.

“I am sure. Tell me, would you have punched all three of them, or do you think after you punched one the others would leave you alone?”

“I…”

“Say thank you, _child._ ”

“Don’t call me that! I’m sixteen. Napoleon made himself the head of the Bonaparte family before he was 16. If it was good enough for Napoleon, it’s good enough for me.”

“ _Da_ , but I would call someone ten years your senior a child if they behaved like you. Now say thank you.”

“No.”

“Fine.” Ivan said, his lips still curved into a smile. “Then I supposed I will just leave you here. I am sure you know exactly where you are, _da_?”

“Bastard. You wouldn’t!” But Alfred found himself chuckling at that. Ivan, though, he leveled him with a look that was only half-serious.

“Try me.” And with that, he turned around and started walking down street, in the direction that Alfred had been going before being stopped by the Italians. Alfred stood still a minute, deciding to call Ivan’s bluff. However, the man didn’t turn around to check if he was being followed, and while Alfred didn’t think Ivan was going to just leave him there after he _saved_ him from the blackshirts…

Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to humor the man? Alfred was lucky enough to run into him. Fine. Just this once, he could do this.

  
“Hey Ivan! Wait!” He ran after him, making the distance between them quickly. Ivan, though, he just started walking a little bit faster.

“Are you here to say thank you?” Alfred could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Ugh, I was going to, but why do you have to be like this?” Ivan stopped in his tracks at that, turned towards Alfred.

“I am waiting, Alfred.” At least he didn’t call him a child this time, Alfred though. Oh well, he could do this.

“Thanks.”

 “Nyet, not like that. That is…what do you call it? Half-assing it?” Ivan said, tapping a finger against his cheek. “Say it properly.” Alfred hated him for sounding for fucking amused by this whole thing.

“ _Thank you,_ Ivan.” He said with a eye-roll. There. He got that one out.

“Better. Though it would be better if you said ‘ _Thank you for saving me from those bad men, Ivan. I am very grateful, what would I have done, had you not appeared_?’”

Alfred couldn’t help himself. He burst into laughter at that, hoping that Ivan’s wasn’t being serious because hell, he wouldn’t be able to get that out with a straight fucking face.

“You are very rude, did anyone ever tell you that?” Ivan said, though he didn’t sound particularly offended. “Very rude, and you have no respect for your elders. How very American of you.”

“Thanks,” Alfred said with a grin and shrug. “I’ve been living in England for such a long time, I’m going to take it as a major compliment if you tell me I sound American. The day someone tells me I sound English…” a shudder went through him at the thought, “…that’s the day I’m ending it all. Also – like come on, really now? Scandalizing people and making fun of the etiquette are literally one of the best things to do back home when we have guests.”

“You are a menace,” Ivan said, shaking his head, but there was no denying the fact that he seemed to enjoy Alfred’s company. “Now that we cleared that – what were you doing here Alfred?”

“Well, you see….I got lost.”

“Da, that part I figured out. I am foggy on the details.”

“It’s kinda like this – my friend, the one that took me to the Uffizi, he had business to take care of today. Something about his picking up his grandpa from the train station. So he said, ‘Ve~ Alfredo~ I can’t walk you today, please do something yourself. Pasta, pasta, gelato, something like that.’”

“I very much doubt he said a random ‘pasta’ in the middle of the conversation.”

“Yeah, well, I had to do an Italian accent, you know?” He tapped his foot a couple of times. “So anyways, he was busy today, but I didn’t want to just hang out around his house. I wanted to do something. So I thought it would a good idea to come to town and get some of that fancy Italian ice-cream, walk down the Arno or something.”

“Did you?”

“No,” Afred sighed, disappointed. “I got lost. Those guys started bothering me before I got the chance to make it to the piazza.” He sniffed a bit, looked at with what Mattie would probably qualify as a pout. It wasn’t, though, it was a very mature expression of disappointment.

Ivan looked at him thoughtfully, seemingly contemplating something. He made up his mind, looked at Alfred with a smile on his face, his violet eyes lighting up. Alfred though his cheeks were feeling a bit warm. Probably the heat.

“Then, let us go get you gelato, Alfred. I will take you.” The man said decisively.

“Wait! Really?” He felt his eyes grow large at that, a great surprise for sure. What the hell? Was Ivan going to take him for gelato? Did he have time for that? Wasn’t he…like…busy or something?

“Really. You wanted _fancy Italian ice-cream,_ da? I am going to get you ice-cream.”

“But…why? Like, don’t you have anything better do to?” He really shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but Ivan just seemed so damn _nice_. Like walking with him at the Uffizi, listening to him rant, and coming to his rescue today….

“Not particularly. I confess that I did have errands to run today, but I am not pressed by time.” Sure, that answered the second question, but…  

“Yeah, but why are you being so nice? Is it some weird Russian thing?” Ivan laughed at that, actually laughed with a deep rumble.

“Nyet, nothing as such. And it has been a long time since someone called me nice.” He shook his head, still giggling, “I am merely…bored, and I am alone in Florence for the time being. Options about what to do are limited.” He shrugged his shoulders, like it was not big deal. “And I confess, I find you amusing. I also think you will undoubtedly manage to attract another unfortunate situation if I were to leave you alone.”

Truth be told, Alfred knew he was supposed to feel a bit insulted at that. He was perfectly okay, he could manage just fine by himself. Ivan seemed to think he was a walking mess, and he was _amused_ by it. Sure, he met the met while he was close to having a panic attack, then proceeded  to rant about a silly existential crisis in front of a priceless painting. Then ran into him again while he was being mobbed by….- okay.

He could understand why Ivan thought that.

But really, he wasn’t like that.

He felt his ears burn and he promptly stopped himself when he realized he was chewing on his bottom lip.

He was fine alone, but on the other hand, he really didn’t want to refuse Ivan. He liked Ivan, as briefly as he had met him, the man seemed to be easy to talk to and he was just….The coolness and the calmness. Yeah. And he had a nice smile, and his rumbled laughter kinda made Alfred want to say silly stuff so he could hear it more.

“Can we also get lunch? I’m kinda hungry.”

“Da, we can also get lunch.” Smile, smile – yeah, there it was. Alfred felt his own lips stretch so far his cheeks hurt. And they were still feeling hot.

“Awesome! Let’s go!” And he looked left and right – he wanted to start walking, because right now his legs felt a little…heavy and light at the same time and he thought that he’d start bouncing on his heels if he were to just sit on the spot. But he also had no idea where exactly he was, so Alfred turned to look up at Ivan, met his eyes – that were almost fucking _twinkling_ , who the fuck had eyes like that? It was unfair, cuz they were much too pretty and Alfred had never met girls with eyes like that and… He sighed “I have no idea where were supposed to go.”

“It is fine. I will lead the way. You said you wanted to walk along the Arno as well?”

So he started walking ahead of Alfred and it took him like two extra steps to fall in line with Ivan’s strides.

“Yeah, I guess we can do that. After we get ice cream. And lunch.”

“After ice-cream and lunch, _da._ ” Ivan slipped his gloved hands into his pockets, “What time do you have to get home?” Alfred shrugged at that. He didn’t have any particular time he had to get back.

“I guess I should be back before dinner. So not for a while.”

“It is fine, I will make sure you are back safe, lest you turn into pumpkin when it gets dark.” The man smirked at him, and it was more than a bit condescending, but Alfred couldn’t find it in himself to feel offended at it.

“Midnight, Ivan. You turn into a pumpkin at _midnight._ ”

 

* * *

 

“You know, I got my first kiss a couple of days ago.”

Ivan blinked at him a couple of times, vanilla gelato cone stopped halfway to his mouth. It wasn’t fair that Alfred’s own pistachio-hazelnut one was melting and dripping all over the place, while Ivan’s was still perfectly cool. What kind of sorcery was that?

“Congratulations?” Ivan said, unsure how he was supposed to proceed after such an announcement. However, the pause between Alfred saying it and Ivan responding to it was long enough that it made Alfred feel awkward.

 He turned from Ivan and looked ahead, at the rolling waters of the Arno. They were sitting on the concrete slabs that ran down a portion of the river banks, feet suspended above the water below. Alfred had insisted on the spot – it was better than a bench, you had more of a feeling of being close to the water and actually enjoying the experience. Ivan hadn’t protested at the request.

“Yeah…thanks, I guess?” He took another bite of his ice-cream, biting into the wafer shell of it. Regretfully, he was almost done with his, while Ivan’s looked barely touched.

“You do not seem very excited about it. ” Ivan commented, very matter-of-factly. It made Alfred feel a bit…well, a bit shy, to be honest. Why, exactly, had he told Ivan this?

“Erm….should I be excited about it? Is it something to be excited about?”

“I assume so. Generally, one would expect a feeling of pride to be associated with it. Unless the experience was unpleasant?” At that, Ivan gave Alfred a look and continued with, “Was she not pretty?” A smirk, and Alfred’s cheeks were burning again.

“I guess she’s pretty? I don’t know, I didn’t have the time to really study her. ” He sighed and plopped the last of his ice-cream cone into his mouth.

“Ah, I see. So it took you by surprise. You were robbed.” Ivan concluded with giggle. “Is that why you are so upset about this? Because a pretty Italian girl stole your first kiss before you had a chance to properly consent to it?”

“Don’t tease me about it, Ivan. It’s not like that,” Alfred said with a sigh, though he didn’t want to admit that maybe Ivan was right and it was exactly like that. “It’s just…I mean. She’s a maid in the Vargas home. She snuck up on me while I was in the kitchen a couple of nights ago and kissed me. That was a about it. She kept saying stuff to me, but I don’t speak Italian, she doesn’t speak English, how was I supposed to understand what she wanted? Then she just kissed me.”

“And did you kiss back?”

Alfred threw Ivan a _look_ , a bit of a dirty look if he was being honest. Really, what kind of question was that?

Ivan shrugged, gave his ice cream a dainty lick and Alfred couldn’t help but think he was a bit like a big cat like that. Very careful, with small moves and tasting carefully.

“It is a valid question, Alfred. Did you kiss her back?”

“No”, he admitted after a long pause. It felt like defeat to say it like that. “No, I didn’t. I freaked out and made a run for it.”

Ivan didn’t even attempt to hide his laughter, and it was for the first time Alfred felt the need to hide from the sound of it. He wanted to protest, at least tell Ivan to stop laughing, but the words refused to leave his lips.

“I am sorry for laughing, Alfred. It is unfair of me, though I think I understand the disappointment of it better now.” Ivan was still giggling at the last word, but Alfred had regained his composure enough to be able to protest.

“It’s not funny, Ivan! Come on.”

“Nyet, it _is_. ” But his eyes softened after that and he extend his gelato cone towards Alfred like a peace offering. “Take mine too.”

“Thanks!” Alfred took the offered treat and bit into it before turning to Ivan, “Don’t you want it anymore?” Maybe he should have asked that before, not when he had a mouthful of tasty vanilla.

“No, it’s quite alright. You can have it.”

At least gelato was creamy and rich and soothing, making Alfred forget about the absolute disaster that his first kiss had been.

“I just…kinda thought it was supposed to be different, you know?”

“Different how?”

Alfred wasn’t about to say this out loud, kissing and first kissing and all that kind of shit conjured up images of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. And true love’s first kiss. Lancelot and Guinevere stealing kisses behind Arthur’s back and stuff like that. Something you had to work for and it had to be something special, right?

He didn’t say anything to Ivan though, he just took a huge bite out of his vanilla cone. How had Ivan kept this thing mostly intact? It was still frozen and cold, while Alfred’s own gelato, long gone, has started dripping almost as soon as he got it.

Ivan noticed his hesitance to say respond to his inquiry and giggled at him.

“I believe you might have an overly romantic vision of it. Rest assured, Alfred, first times are almost always invariably awkward and somewhat unpleasant. You never get something right at _first_. ”

“Yeah, but this was like…my first kiss. I am not satisfied with it. I want a do-over!”

“I am afraid you cannot do that. Maybe if you are lucky, you can ask the nice girl that kissed you to give you another kiss. That way you can wash away the bad feeling of the first one.” Ivan said, and got up from the spot he was sitting.

Alfred followed after him, catching up behind him quickly. They had been out for a couple of hours, already and the sky was starting to turn pink. Alfred would have to hurry back to the Vargas mansion if he wanted to be there before dinner.

“But I don’t want to kiss her.”

“Then find some else. Preferably someone you like – kissing is definitely a better experience if you like the person you are you kissing.”

That made Alfred stop in his tracks and really think for a second about what Ivan said. Someone you like, someone you like…

“Like them…how?” He asked with a shrug.

There was the whole like or like- _like_ thing, but he wasn’t sure he completely understood the difference. When you got down to it, Alfred had to admit that he simply didn’t know enough people to like- _like_ someone, like he suspected that Mattie liked Katya.  He’d never met someone that made him stammer and blush and give him an intense urge to read Russian literature with.

It had to be more than that, but every time he wanted to talk about it with Mattie, his twin blushed like a lobster and told Alfred that there was nothing to talk about, nothing to explain. Arthur didn’t talk about shit like that, so love in the romantic sense, and kissing and like- _liking_ someone were not something Alfred had any experience with.

He didn’t read that girly stuff that Mattie read, the kind of books Alfred enjoyed weren’t the ones that thought you how to deal with shit like this.

“What do you mean, how to do you like someone? How does it feel like?” Ivan laughed at him, “You are sixteen, correct? You should be falling in love with most girls you see passing your way. Or maybe your preferences skew in a different direction?” Ivan quirked his head at him, giving off a good example of  how he would behave like if he really were that big cat Alfred thought of him as.

“I have no idea. I’ve never really fallen in love with anyone before.”

“Falling in love…” Ivan said, almost to himself. Like he was testing to see how it felt on his lips, how it rolled on his tongue. “Most people say it is something of a…leap of faith, I think they call it.”

“Like God?”

Ivan laughed, that deep rumbling laugh, but it didn’t make Alfred feel at ease in way, not now. They started walking again, and Alfred followed him down one of the winding Florentine alleys.

“I am not sure what falling in love has to do with God. It is all together a more human experience.”

“Like?”

“Like meeting someone and feeling them close to you instantly. Like you might have known them forever. A deep understanding of the other, whether true or not, it feels as if you might know them inside out.”

Alfred thought about that. It was definitely getting much to late outside, and cooler. He felt a shiver down his spine that made him stop in his tracks to hug himself. Damn, Italian weather was weird. It was fine one second, it got cold in another.

Ivan noticed him stopping, turned to him and took a step closer to Alfred.

“Are you cold?”

“Yeah.”

Maybe it was some kind of cold wind that Ivan blocked with his tall, broad frame, because the second he stepped closer to Alfred, his cold shivering stopped and it was replaced by a warmth that started inside his stomach and spread outward.

Alfred looked up at Ivan, and the man was really close. He gave off no warmth whatsoever, regardless of the heavy clothes he was wearing. As close as he was, though, Alfred thought stupidly that his eyes were shining, like shining and luminous along with the setting sun, like the shadows of the alley made them stand out sharply.

It wasn’t fair, it really wasn’t fair.

Alfred had never met anyone with eyes like Ivan.

“Better?”

“Like someone understanding what you want to say before you say it yourself?”

Ivan started at him for a second too long, making the warmth inside him turn hotter and brighter.

“I suppose. Yes. That is a way to describe it.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Alfred asked on impulse, before he even had time to think about it, before he could process the request inside his own head. After if left his lips, he stood there stunned without really knowing how to justify himself, but he realized….even if he hadn’t meant to, he didn’t want to take it back.

He thought of how he and Ivan had met a day before, how they had stood side by side in front of the _Primavera_ , how Ivan had looked at him like he understood Alfred, like he felt it too, the wondering and the confusion and everything that Alfred didn’t think about and thought about too much.

If _understanding_ on a deep, personal level was what you needed to make a kiss good, then Alfred thought Ivan understood something about Alfred that he himself had trouble putting into words. It made sense to kiss him, right? Whatever it was, there was this…

Thing…things?

This ball of warmth in this stomach and this fluttering in his chest that pulled him towards Ivan, like a longing that he couldn’t name and a feeling he didn’t know about, like being pulled out of the orphanage to search for a cat, like the _fields of gold against a bright blue sky,_ like closing his eyes and letting the cold wash over him, like falling asleep in the snow and waking up startled, like not wanting to wake up at all.

“I am much too old for you to kiss, Alfred.” Ivan said with a laugh, but to Alfred that wasn’t good enough. In that moment he didn’t care how old Ivan might have been or not, because there was the pull, the one in his chest.

“Let me kiss you, please?” He tried again, this time with a smile.

“Alfred, you have no idea what you are really asking for. You are…”

“Don’t say child.”

“ _Young_. Were you ten years older, I would still be _old._ ” Ivan meant to take a step back, but Alfred grabbed him by the wrist to stop him. By the wrist, where his gloves ended and there was a bit of skin exposed, and he almost startled when he felt how…normal…Ivan’s skin felt under his fingers. Somehow, he’s expected it to be cold.

Ivan, though, he stopped, looked down, looked at Alfred’s hand holding on him, blinked like he was dazed and trying to make sense of the situation. Alfred licked his lips.

“How old are you, though?”

“Old. Too old. Much much older than you…” he answered absentmindedly, voice trailing off, still looking at their hands like he didn’t know what to make of the touch.

“That’s bullshit, what the fuck is that supposed to mean, Ivan?”

Ivan’s eyes snapped towards him, head jerking forward and getting closer to Alfred, closer than Alfred expected it, and for a wild second he thought that Ivan would kiss him regardless of what he said. Ivan didn’t, though, he just started at Alfred as if he was expecting him to crumble away into dust any second. Any second now.

 Ivan didn’t say anything, he raised the hand that Alfred wasn’t holding to his lips, bit the leather fingertip of his glove and pulled it off with his teeth.

“What are you doing?”

“ _Hush_ , Alfred. ” The glove had fallen to the ground and Ivan’s broad palm cupped Alfred’s cheek, long pale fingers spreading out against his skin.

Ivan’s hand was cool, but not cold, his touch against Alfred’s heated cheek felt better than he ever thought something so simple could be. He leaned into it slightly, pushed against the touch gently. Alfred raised both his hands and put them against the back of Ivan’s hand, kept his palm against his cheek and held onto him.

The heat in his chest, the painful burn and flutter of his heart calmed down when Ivan touched him and it made his sigh.

Meanwhile, Ivan looked at him like he had been stabbed in the stomach, like Alfred was holding a knife to his gut. He looked pained and he looked scared, scared by Alfred, and what had Alfred done for Ivan look at him like that?

He didn’t understand it, but wanted to sooth it nonetheless. He let go of Ivan’s hand, reached out to brush his fingers against the other man’s cheek. Ivan made a _sound,_ from his throat, high pitched and hurt, like he had expected Alfred’s touch to hurt him, Alfred himself expected the man to flinch.

Ivan didn’t flinch from his touch, but he took his hand away Alfred’s face. Before Alfred got any chance to protest, he saw Ivan taking off his other glove as well, and then he took Alfred’s face in both his hand, touching and caressing his cheekbones with this thumbs.

“What kind of a curse are you and who sent you my way?” He asked, as if Alfred had any idea what he was talking about, what he meant, what he should answer to that.

So he didn’t say anything at all, he let Ivan pull him forward. Alfred went willingly, and Ivan lowered his head, touched his forehead to Alfred’s. Their noses brushed together. One of Ivan’s hands slipped from his cheek lower, a slow pull downward. Over his jawline, settled against his throat. He wondered if the other man could feel his pulse there.

“Please kiss me.” Alfred whispered into the air between them. Ivan shook his head softly, the motion making his hook nose rub against Alfred’s.

“No, I think not. It would feel too much like sealing fate.” Alfred held his breath as Ivan let go of him and straightened, took a step back from Alfred. His hands, when they left Alfred’s skin…he didn’t mean to let out a pathetic sounding whine at it, but he did. He had no idea what he had been longing for until now, but now he knew what it was.

“No” He protested, took a step towards Ivan, but the man just shook his head.

“No, I will not. Besides” a laugh here, “you are the one that asked for a kiss first, you should be the one to kiss me, _da_?”

Alfred didn’t say anything at that. _Bastard_ , Alfred felt himself heat up and blush brightly. Ivan kissing him was one thing, but for him to kiss the older man…

“I…” and he stopped. He didn’t know how to go on after that.

“I thought so. Go back home, Alfred. Kiss the pretty Italian girl that you met.”

And with that, he turned around, and Alfred thought that he meant that to be the end of the fucking conversation. Only Alfred wasn’t satisfied with that, he didn’t _want_ to go about kissing that girl, he wanted…

Mind made up, he grabbed Ivan’s bare hand this time, counting on surprising the other man with the touch. It had the desired effect, Ivan’s head jerked sharply in Alfred’s direction and Alfred…

He took a deep steadying breath, kept it in his chest, raised his head and crashed into Ivan. Pressed their lips together, _kissed_ him.  For a second, really, and he pulled away just as forcefully as he pushed forward, heart hammering wildly in his chest, breath coming out in puffs.

Alfred’s mind was absolutely blank.

Ivan was looking at him like it was the last thing he expected. Alfred saw the emotions on his face change – surprise, a flash of anger, disbelief again, then it finally settled on something soft and amused.

“That was an awful kiss, Alfred.” He settled on saying.

Alfred shrugged.

“How else do you do it, except for _doing it?”_

Ivan let out a laugh, but it was less amused, more sad.

“If you really want to…” He reached out for Alfred again, put his hand on his cheek once more and Alfred sighed. Leaned into his touch. “You have to relax.  Breath.” Alfred left his lungs expanding at this. Inhale, exhale. “Good, like that,” Ivan’s other hand raised itself to Alfred’s face, he touched a finger to Alfred’s lips and followed the shape of them, stopped Alfred from biting at his lower lip. “Wet your lips a bit,” he felt Ivan’s breath ghost over his mouth, and Alfred’s tongue darted out to run along his bottom lip. “Now kiss me.”

Alfred looked at Ivan, at his half-lidded eyes and the smile lines that creased the skin beneath them, his delicate eyelashes and then his gaze fell sharply lower, against Ivan’s full mouth and he wanted to kiss him again, to do better. Alfred was the one that closed the distance between them, touching their lips together softly, sealing their mouths in a kiss that made him feel weak all over.

With Ivan’s mouth moving against his, Alfred wondered if this was the tightness in the chest that Chloris felt before flowers spilled from her mouth, the weakness of being swept away by the spring _? No_ , _winter_ _winds_ , the weakness of being swept away by the winter winds. There was nothing that inspired warmth about Ivan, but kissing him felt like a fever breaking after days of writhing in bed.

Alfred’s hand clutched uselessly at the man’s coat, while Ivan’s hands were running up and down the line of his shoulders, his neck, his jaw, his cheeks. Alfred broke the kiss when all of it felt too overwhelming, looked at Ivan and it did nothing to change the idea that he was secretly some sort of Russian Fairytale Prince, like Ivan Tsarevich, freshly revived with the Water of Death and the Water of Life, mounted on top of the Grey Wolf.

His eyes really were glowing, Alfred thought he was seeing things, but Ivan’s violet eyes really were

– glowing and luminous and Alfred’s breath was coming out in pants and fogging in front of his mouth like it was winter, but he wasn’t feeling the cold.

It was September and the day had been hot and sunny and no way was it cold enough for his breath to fog, but it was, and he raised his fingers to touch Ivan’s face, the skin under his impossible, glowing eyes, like midnight sun catching in shards of ice, Alfred’s mind was definitely playing tricks on him, no one had eyes that _glowed_.

But Ivan did, and Alfred was enthralled, bewitched, spellbound, hypnotized and all those words that had no place in anyone’s casual vocabulary, but how to you describe the _impossible_ feeling of wanting to put your hand into a fire when you knew full well you shouldn’t.

Arthur took him to the Manchester factory where they were refining steel – there was a huge pit where fire burned constantly, where they separated the metal and made it malleable before pouring it into molds and Alfred wondered casually what it would be like to take a step forward and fell into it. Really, the answer is that you died in a horrific manner.

But if you didn’t, say that hypothetically speaking you’d be able to survive that, would you come out of there with your skin covered in steel, burning hot? Like that one greedy Prince that challenged the Mongols, and they poured molten gold over his head? Like the burning gold chains that the Prince put around the neck of the Winter Princess before he stole her away?

Alfred bridged the distance between him and Ivan again, kissing him before either of them had the chance to back away from it. Lips pressing together, sharing breath. Alfred hear Ivan pulled away first, ran his thumb along Alfred’s bottom lip and whispered “ _Open your mouth for me_ ” against his lips.

So Alfred did, opened his mouth against Ivan’s and felt the other’s tongue against his. And if there had been a fever inside of Alfred’s bones for the past few days, a ball of molten steel against his ribs that made his heart hammer in his chest, Ivan made it disappear just like that.

When Ivan pulled away and took a step back from Alfred, he was left there, staring dumbly at the others face, breath fogging despite not being cold, fingers shaking, knees weak.

He felt like he should say something – thank you?

It seemed stupid.

He had no idea what he was supposed to say or do, and for one of the first moments in his life, Alfred found himself tongue tied and speechless, mind blank, half thoughts and half questions forming themselves inside his skull.

“Alfred, I think it is best I take you home now.”

“No,” and he shook his head.

No, he didn’t want Ivan to take him home.

He wanted Ivan to take him in his arms and…he didn’t know what after that.

No, he didn’t want Ivan to take him home because he didn’t want to see Ivan right now.

But he did, and he didn’t.

It was too confusing, too many things in his head and all at once and none of them making sense, he needed to make sense of them.

Alfred took a step back from Ivan, and another.

“Alfred, I cannot let you go alone and it is getting late…”

But Alfred wasn’t listening to him.

Ivan’s eyes _glowed,_ and he had looked at Alfred like he was some kind of…

Really, what?

Like he wanted to steal away, like Alfred was this thing he’d never seen before and Ivan wanted to steal it away, like women looked at diamond rings when they were window shopping with their sweethearts, like he wanted to grab him and take him away and Alfred didn’t know if he was scared of that, or if he should be scared of that, or he should be scared because he really wasn’t scared at all…

Because the part of him that was longing and yearning uselessly all the time for something he couldn’t put his finger on had settled and quieted when he’d been with Ivan, because when Ivan kissed him it shut up completely and then it had sang and he didn’t know anything at all about kissing, but should it feel like this? Like that?

Like sealing fate and breaking a loop and waking up in the snow all over again.

Alfred was already running down the street, his legs taking him as far as they could as fast as he could, without really caring where it took him, just _away_ from Ivan and the strange power that the other man had over him.

No one should have that amount of power over him. Alfred didn’t want it, not like that, not without understanding it and without knowing exactly what it was that he was feeling.

So fuck, Alfred discovered something about himself that evening – he was a coward, running away from something because he couldn’t understand it.

 

* * *

 

 


	7. In Defense of a Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. 
> 
> Hello there. This has been a long time coming - but I haven't abandoned this story. I'm too attached to it to give it up. I took a long break from it because life happened. However, I am back in business now. Go me. For better or for worse, I'm going to stick to this story and try by damn best to finish so. 
> 
> So - here you go, folks. Enjoy this monster of a chapter, that clocks at an impressive 12,994 words. They say brevity is the soul of wit, but brevity is not a word that exists in my vocabulary, it seems.

* * *

 

 

Alfred didn’t make it back to the Vargas home in time for dinner, but he made it there eventually. Arthur had been sick with worry, and Feliciano told him they had been ready to set out and look for him. He got a scolding, a true and proper scolding from Arthur, but the man was so visibly upset by Alfred’s disappearing act that Alfred didn’t put up much of a fight.

“I cannot believe you would run off like that, you had me thinking something had happened. What where were you even thinking. Alfred? Alfred, are you listening to me?”

“Hmmm.” He made a sound that was halfway between an agreement, but the truth of the matter was...

No.

No, he wasn’t listening. Listening would have meant getting his head involved, and he was not in a place to think. There were too many things jumbled up, hitting against his skull, all glowing bright and hot and up front and center there was Ivan.

“Alfred, are you alright?” His caretaker asked, probably shocked that Alfred was being so quiet. Arthur stopped pacing the length of the Vargas sitting room, stopped in his tracks and looked at Alfred.

There had never been a time that Arthur scolded him without Alfred protesting to it every step of the way. Yeah, his silence was strange, he knew it, but for the life of him, he didn’t care about it enough to put up a fight.

“I’m fine.” He answered, and it sounded fake even to his own ears.

“Are you sure? You don’t sound fine, and you don’t look fine, lad. You’re flushed and…” Arthur frowned and walked up to him, put a hand on his forehead. His green eyes widen, “You’re burning up, Alfred, why didn’t you say you weren’t feeling well? You have a fever.”

Alfred frown, he didn’t feel sick. He told Arthur, he was fine, he was alright, a little –a lot – confused about the things that had happened during the day, but physically there was nothing wrong with him.

“I’m fine, really. I don’t feel feverish.”

“You’re burning up, child, what’s wrong with you? You need to speak up about things like this”

“But I said I was feeling…”

“If I may,” it was Feliciano’s Grandpa, Romulus, was it? The man seemed to have appeared in the doorway and he was studying Alfred and Arthur with a bored expression on his face.

Grandpa, that’s how Feliciano had called him, but the man didn’t look like a Grandpa. Maybe they just aged differently in the Mediterranean climate. He interrupted Arthur and stepped between him and Alfred.  The man raised his hand to Alfred’s forehead, stopped before touching him, “May I check?”

Alfred shrugged, sure, if this guy wanted to check his temperature he might as well do it.

Romulus touched his forehead, and kept his had there a bit too long if Alfred was allowed an opinion about it. The man frowned and pressed his whole palm against Alfred’s skull and just looked at him. The impression that Alfred had after being subjected to Romulus’ intense gaze was that the other had this uncanny ability to look straight through his head, to peel away the layers and find the root of the problem that Alfred didn’t know existed. 

Creepy.

 “Signor Kirkland, do you think you can step out a bit?” He said casually, though is eyes spoke of something serious underneath “I would like to have a word with young Alfred here.”

“No.” Grandpa Vargas turned to Arthur sharply, but the other man only stood his ground and glared harder, “No, you may not have a word with him in private. He’s my son and I will damn well listen to anything you’ll be talking about.” The older man only sighed at that.

“Very well, then. I suppose you are right. ” With that, he sat heavily on the sofa next to Alfred and turned to him, looking altogether too serious. Alfred was half-expecting the other to tell him he was about to die or something, when the serious mood lifted suddenly and Italian smiled at him brightly.

Ah, right, the family resemblance was there

“So, Alfred. Do you like it here in Florence? Feliciano told me took you to the Uffizi. Did you like it?”

“Yeah, I guess. Pretty nice, and you know…” he was searching of a word to describe it, but instinctively knew he fell short when he came up with…”…pretty.” Pretty wasn’t enough to describe it, but Alfred didn’t have a word for it. “I’m not much of an art person, I guess.”

“Yes, I can understand that. My grandson is very fond of art himself, he was always considered a patron of the Arts.” Alfred didn’t know much about art, but he thought he was strange to say that. Feliciano was passionate about his Renaissance painters, yeah, but he wasn’t he a bit too young to be A Patron of the Arts or whatever they called it? “I myself had other kinds of passions in my youth, but I encouraged Feliciano to pursue his love for art. He was never meant to follow in my footsteps, him and Lovino weren’t meant to be soldiers.”

“You were a soldier?”

“Does that surprise you, young man? I fought in many wars.”

“What wars? Other than the Great war…” Alfred trailed off, struggling to remember what other noteworthy and important wars Italy had been involved in, that someone like Grandpa Vargas could have been involved in.

“Oh, I didn’t fight in the Great War. I had already retired at that point. Started getting into business with Arthur over there.”

“Then what other wars are there worth mentioning?”

The man looked at Alfred with mock outrage, hand on his chest to feign hurt.

“I assure you there were many wars that were important and worth mentioning, though they were long before your time. Many great men that fought and died.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like Scipio Africanus, and conquering Carthage, wrestling control over Gaul, fighting the barbarian tribes…” Alfred frowned at that.

“Hannibal was cooler than the Romans. He marched elephants over the Alps.” Romulus gave out a hearty bark of laughter at that, “I don’t see the point of this though. Yeah, those guys were all awesome, great men and all, but I mean, you said you were a soldier. I asked – what wars did you fight in? It’s not like you got to fight Hannibal, you’re a bit too young for that.”

Romulus just kept laughing at him, shook his head and completely ignored what Alfred said. He turned to Arthur when he wanted to talk.

“Your child is very outspoken, isn’t he?”

“Yes, Alfred has the tendency to let his mouth talk before he thinks.”

“Hey, I am right here!”

“It’s quite already, I’m not upset.” Romulus turned back to him, “Tell me, Alfred, did you meet anyone today while you were out?”

Alfred willed his body not to blush while an image of Ivan standing above his flittered across his vision.

“Why do you ask? What does that have to do with anything?”

Romulus grinned at him. Shit. _Fucking caught._

“Ah, so you did. Tell me more about them. Was it a pretty Italian girl? Was she foreign? Did she have beautiful eyes, long hair?”

“I fail to see the point of this, Romulus.” That was Arthur’s voice. 

 “I simply wanted to see if Alfred had a condition that was caused by physical sickness, or if his fever was…shall we say…. _caused by the magic of love?”_

Alfred blushed. Arthur’s eyes grew wide, looking between Romulus and Alfred himself.

Surprisingly, when he spoke he didn’t address Alfred.

“It can’t be like that. Alfred…he’s…”

“Arthur,” Grandpa Vargas turned to Arthur and threw him a look, making him shut up instantly. The Englishman didn’t take kindly to it, but it made him turn to Alfred.

“Alfred, you’re running a fever. Regardless if you do or no not feel it, you’re burning up. Best you go to bed.”

Alfred felt the need to protest that swelling up in his throat, but he knew this game. It was the game Arthur did back home with Katya too, when he wanted to speak to her in private. Usually, he called her into his study and turned on the gramophone, but they didn’t have a gramophone in this room, right? So Alfred would play along.

He got up from the couch without protesting and stepped outside, closed the door behind him. No one followed him or looked after him, so he took of his shoes, picked them in his hand and turned back around to the door, pressing his ear against it.

“Now Arthur, I know you’re worried, but you need to think about this calmly.”

“Worried? Romulus, it’s not possible for someone to affect Alfred like that. I took all the precautions. I asked _Yekaterina_ to help me with the wards with all the protection spells, it’s impossible for someone to get around them.”

“Yekaterina? _Yekaterina Braginskaya?_ Ivan’s sister?”

“Yes, Ivan’s sister! She came to me for help. She repaid that help with information about Ivan and spell work. It’s impossible for someone to break her kind of magic, isn’t it?”

“No, nothing is impossible, child. I can think of someone that could easily break apart your magic, and Yekaterina’s”

There was a long pause on the other side of the door.

“It can’t be him. It can’t. Can it?”

“It might be.”

“Impossible, you would have felt it if he came here, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t think so. I only met Ivan once, and that was a very, very long time ago. Last time I saw him, he was merely a child testing his powers, and I was younger then, stronger. In the time being – my powers kept dwindling, dimishing. Parts of my magic, I gave away. Other bits and pieces were stolen by thieves like yourself. Ivan’s powers matured and kept getting stronger, his imprints on it surely changed and he must have learned how to conceal himself.”

“So you’re saying that even if he was here, you wouldn’t be able to tell?”

“Most likely not. I’m not as strong as I used to be. It’s the problem that comes with generosity – it weakens you in time. Ivan was born into his magic, he never gave any of it away.”

“That’s because no one wants his kind of magic. Everything Ivan touches, it freezes and dies. No one can touch him. His own sister – even Yekaterina feels pain when she touches him.”

“Poor Ivan, then. It is the price that comes with the kind of raw power he possess, I suppose. However, you’re boy isn’t truly human, is he?” There was a short pause. “Tell me, Arthur Kirkland, what is he? I can’t quite place it. He isn’t aware of it and it’s very well hidden inside spell and wards, but I can sense it. I smell it. That boy smells of death.”

The pause was longer, and it was accompanied by a shuffling, like Arthur started pacing again. Then it stopped and there was a long sigh.

“I suppose it was only a matter of time you figured it out. I wanted to tell you under different circumstances, but you are right. Alfred isn’t…” Pause. Sigh. “Do you know how I found him, Romulus? I was in the States at the time. It was winter. Probably the worst winter I had ever seen in many years. And I found him outside. He wandered out during the night to chase a cat, without shoes or a coat. I found him in the morning.”

 A pause, heavy and Alfred could feel breath caught his chest, unable to let go,  afraid and enraptured.

“Arthur, what did you do?”

“He froze, Romulus. He was frozen. And I saw my fair share of dead children in my time, but I couldn’t walk past this one like it all the other times.”

“So you used some of the magic you stole over the years and brought him back.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And now it’s deteriorating. Your magic is fading away inside him. This is why you accepted Yekaterina’s help, wasn’t it? You knew your own magic wouldn’t be strong enough to last and wanted a different solution.”

“It’s why I’m here now. I wanted to look for another way.” 

There was another pause. Longer, heavier, then laughter, Romulus was laughing.

“You found a boy that froze to death and brought him back? And then you asked Yekaterina for help to shroud him in magic. I should venture to say that his soul would call out to Ivan like a _beacon_.”

“That’s not supposed to happen.”

“People are not supposed to be brought back from the death. It leaves a mark on the soul. It’s the reason your dear sweet Francis has that scar around his throat, doesn’t he? Death leaves a mark. Stealing a soul from the clutches of death, are you surprised that would leave an imprint on his soul. I understand you don’t see it like that – you take things and make them yours, as it the nature of thieves.”

“How dare you…”

“Hush child, I am not finished. Listen to your elders. You stole this ability from someone stronger than you, the ability to bring back the dead. But you never got the understanding of it, nor the full extent of the power. Let me educate you – a soul that has been stolen from the clutches of death will long to return. And dying by freezing on a winter night, that leaves lining of frost and cold on the soul. The more your magic would deteriorate – the more the ice on his soul would shine through.”

Laughter again, Romulus was amused.

“Ivan would be able to feel it, the longing. Ivan’s magic is winter magic and it’s all infused with death. Ivan himself is born of death and cold and frost, isn’t he?”

“Are you saying that…?”

“What I’m saying, dear Arthur Kirkland, is that I am now very sure that Ivan is here in Florence – and I not by accident. I think he might be here because he was hearing a siren’s song in the distance.”

There was pain in Alfred’s chest, a burning in his head. He stepped away from the door, trying and failing to make sense of what he had heard.

The words made sense separately and when he had heard them, but now that he was trying to put meaning to them it all got blurry. There was something he was missing, the understanding of what words meant. He couldn’t be here.

The more he listened to Arthur and Romulus talk, the more painful it got, until he felt like choking on the pain, pain, pain, pain.

There was something missing from his head, it was understanding, comprehension that was hidden behind a corner but he didn’t _want_ it.

He stepped away from the door, he took a couple of steps back and then turned around. Tried making his way up the stairs, one at the time, careful not to move to fast lest he caused more harm to himself.

Everything hurt.

Pain spread.

And there was something missing from Alfred’s head, he knew it. Arthur and Romulus were talking about something, and the connection was there, it was simple, it was sitting perked at the edge of his mind, but for the life of him, he couldn’t make it stick, he couldn’t focus enough to make sense of it.

Pain, pain, pain, ow.

Ow.

Chest burning, head on fire.

He stopped, tried to steady himself against the wall. He didn’t want the understanding, he didn’t want to face it, but he had to. But it hurt, everything hurt. 

He thought of Ivan, meeting him at the Uffizi and looking at him and the whole world felt like it was tipping forward on its axis. Then he thought of Katya, offering him strawberry zefirs that melted on his tongue, telling him about Ivan, her brother Ivan that dreamt of endless fields of gold against a bright blue sky.

And he never met Ivan Braginsky, right, never had any reason to. Kat kept him a secret.

He’d never seen his face, but now he closed his eyes and saw luminous violet eyes behind his eyelids and ash blond and tall and smiling at Alfred.

There was surge of pain and he struggled to stay upright.

Ivan, Ivan, Ivan.

Ivan that Arthur didn’t like, Ivan that people stayed away from, Ivan that kissed him and Ivan that was born in the snow.

Alfred felt like he couldn’t breathe, as if he was a bird and someone was squishing his ribcage.

Ow, pain.

What the hell was going on with him?

The world started getting dark around the edges and Alfred sat down heavily on the stairs. He closed his eyes, put his head against his arms and concentrated on trying to breathe. In and out, inhale, exhale, but his lungs didn’t feel like they were expanding enough for him to properly take a breath, so it was just a shallow panting.

Keep at it, it’s bound to let up eventually.

Right

It was fine, it was fine, he was going to be fine.

Right?

His thoughts felt as if they were swimming in honey, thick and sluggish without fully forming. And he was tired, much to tired to…

Alfred wanted to rest

It could wait until…

Yeah.

There’s something important that he was missing, he knew it, knew what it was even, but it kept slipping….

Slipping and…

_Should have let Ivan take me home_

 

* * *

 

Dreams are weird things. Fever dreams ever more so – Alfred lost track of any measure of time while he was caught between being awake and being lost to the world.

He was running through a field of sunflowers while it was snowing, and he had no idea if he was running from someone or towards someone. Next thing you know, he was struggling to keep his eyes open, trying to blink away the sleep out of his eyes.

Alfred was laying in bed in the Vargas residence, being half conscious of himself and what was going on around him, half crazy with pain and cold sweats.

He woke up and there was Arthur sitting at his bedside, worried and running pressing cold compresses against his face. Arthur was muttering things under his breath, sounding like _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ , over and over again, but Alfred had no idea what he was being sorry about and before he got the change to ask, he was asleep again.

Then he was dreaming of Katya and Mattie, back home, but they weren’t home, they were locked inside a castle and Alfred was at the gates trying to break them out,. It was a castle made of ice in a barren land, but where Alfred stepped  there was patches of green behind him.

“Your child is going to die, Arthur.”

“No.”

“I am deeply sorry, but…”

“No, goddamnit, there has to be something you can do to...fix this, fix him, ”

Alfred wanted to wake up, look at Arthur and reassure him that he’d be okay. He had to be okay, he needed to get back to Mattie. It wasn’t like Alfred could just get up and die, he had to think of his brother. Who would take care of Mattie is Alfred died?

Kat would take care of Mattie, his brain supplied. His fevered mind reassured him that it was the case, and Alfred had to admit that he believed it. Yes. Kat would take care of Mattie. She wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

So did that meant that Mattie didn’t actually Alfred to protect him anymore?

There was a fresh bout of pain in his chest at that, but this time he didn’t know what had caused it – the fever, the dreams, the thought of Mattie not needing him anymore.

_But I need Mattie to need me._

Alfred couldn’t accept dying, he needed to fix this, he needed to figure out what do to, he needed…needed…needed…

 

* * *

 

When Alfred woke up next, there was no pain, no fever, no nothing. He felt good, better than he did in years, and he was warm and there was a gentle breeze that was caressing his face. He felt it all before he even opened his eyes.

When he did, he was sure he had died in the night.

Alfred wasn’t in the Vargas home anymore. He didn’t think he was even in Florence or in Italy altogether. Instead, Alfred was outside, and his eyes were greeted with a sky so blue that it made him ache inside. The sun was bright and warm and when he stood up, healthy and whole and rested, he was that he was in a field of sunflowers that stretched across an open plain.

And then there was Katya.

His dear Katya was standing there, with her back turned to him, her hair and her dress being gently blown by the breeze.

He walked over to her and stood besides her. At first, she didn’t acknowledge his presence, kept staring into the distance and Alfred did the same, followed her gaze. Across the horizon, far away, he could see a storm, darkness that was eating away everything, tearing the sky and the sunflower fields.

“I never understood the darkness and the loneliness that was always tearing away at my brother, Alfred, so you see, I never knew. The moment where this - ” she motioned to the sunflower field that they were standing in, “Turned into that.” Katya pointed at the storm in the distance and Alfred instantly knew what it was – not a regular storm, but an ice storm from the deepest depths of winter.

Katya turned to him and her eyes were brimming with tears, though she gave him a smile through it all and Alfred found himself reciprocating, giving her his own shaky quirk of lips.

“I met your brother, Kat. He’s nice.” He said lamely, trying to alleviate some of her visible anguish. It made her laugh and made a few tears escape, though she wiped them away furiously.

“Yes. I heard. Ivan told me.”

“He did?”

Katya nodded.

“He did. I was with Matthew at home. We were making zephirs in the kitchens, and then I turned around and Ivan was there, brought the winter winds with him. He scared Matthew, though he didn’t mean to.”

Alfred’s heart ached for his brother.

“Is Mattie okay? Why are you here? Where are we, Kat? Am I…”

 _Dead?_.

Dead was the word he wanted to say but it froze against his tongue. Katya just regarded him for a long second, put her palm against his cheek.

“ _Here_ is not really here, Alfred, but it is. Your body is in Florence, and Arthur is fretting over you. My body is in London, and I think poor Matthew is worried sick over me. Here is…in-between. It’s not death, but it’s not quite living either.”

Alfred didn’t understand what that meant, but he at the moment he was selfishly glad that she was here, that he knew Mattie was safe, that he wasn’t in pain. He touched one of the tall sunflowers they felt real enough against his palm.

“Fields of gold and bright blue skies, is this ….”

“Yes, this is the in-between where my brother chose to exist in for a very long time. Between the dying and the living, neither one suited him very much.”  Katya pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “I need to apologize to you, Alfred. I am afraid I kept things from you that I shouldn’t have. In my defense, I never thought you might need to know them yet.”

Alfred felt a shiver of dread at her words. He supposed there should be a sense of betrayal, but Alfred other feelings were more prominent inside himself – sadness and dread and anxiousness, bubbling tension.

“I came to Arthur Kirkland because I was so – scared. I was scared – Arthur thought for the longest time that I was scared of Ivan, but the truth was I was scared for Ivan. Ivan was scared enough of himself and his own powers. Everyone was scared of him – because things and people died when they touched him, because his mood swings turned the summer sky into a winter night and the winds and snow and frost grew fiercer along with his feelings.

At first, it was just to two of us, for a long, long time. We wandered from village to village for a long time – and I didn’t have a lot to offer him, but I tried to offer him things that were important. To offer love and understanding and hope, to the best of my abilities. It wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t perfect, but I tried, Alfred, you understand? I needed him to know that he wasn’t a monster and that he could be loved and that he needed to hope that at some point in his life, someone will be able to withstand his curse.”

Katya put her hands on Alfred’s shoulders and gripped tightly, made him look her in the eyes. There was desperation there that he’d never seen before, begging him to understand things that he really didn’t want to.

“Ivan makes things die when he touches them, Alfred. Cats and dogs would fall dead when he tried to pet them, flowers when he picked them up would wither away to nothing. I made him wear thick gloves in the summer and kept him away from crowds, but how do you teach a child that he’s not a thing from a nightmare when their skin is like poison to the living. Even me – and we shared the same mother, the same blood – patches of my skin of rot away and fall off. There were times when my fingers were bare bones. It hurt. And I was hurting inside for him.”

There was pause between then, and tears were streaming across her face openly. She made no motion to wipe them away this time. In the distance, the storm of ice and frost was gaining ground, creeping up on them.

“If love, Alfred, if love is acceptance and understanding, who would love my brother when I failed? I failed. It was my duty to protect him – I was older, I should have known better. So when I went to Arthur, I ended up there on accident. I didn’t _know_ him or what he had done or what he was planning, but when I met you I _knew_ , I felt it inside you – the creeping cold and the death. I thought that maybe, with your unique condition – you wouldn’t fall victim to Ivan’s curse. I thought over the years, I could slowly offer you – bits and pieces of magic, here and there, things that Arthur wouldn’t know about.”

Katya sighed. The sun in this weird in between world was shining over them like Alfred had never seen it before.

“And the more time I spent with you and got to know you, the more I thought – the way you are, how brightly hopeful and how easily you love and trust, I thought maybe someone like you would be able to teach Ivan all those things about the heart that I never managed to.”

There it was, though, the sharp sense of betrayal that was finally making itself known.

“Was I supposed to be some sort of a gift for your brother?” He asked, voice higher and more desperate than he wished. His meeting with Ivan came back to him, and it had been such a good memory – was it supposed to be tinted with darkness now? It couldn’t have been arranged, and Ivan himself had seemed…

“No!” Kat was quick to protest, before any of the damage truly settled in. “No, Alfred, nothing of the sort. I didn’t plan for any of this to happen. I _hoped_ , just that. I hoped that sometimes in the future, when you would be older, stronger, when you’d no longer be a child – I had hoped the two of you would meet. I knew if you would meet, things would fall into place. How could they not?”

Alfred wanted to contradict her, but he knew he couldn’t. He thought about Ivan again,  how the other looked so torn, how his eyes shined in the darkness, how his presence calmed Alfred and how he seemed to understand.

Alfred thought back about Katya stories about Ivan, the things he knew about him from his sister. He thought about how, before he even came close to the real deal, he thought that someone like Ivan might have been able to understand the restlessness in his blood, the thoughts and fears in his head that Alfred himself never put a name to.

“But I’m dying, aren’t I? I heard Arthur and Romulus talking about it. They said they can’t do anything about it.”

“Correct. _They_ can’t do anything about it. Arthur’s trick of bringing you back – that sort of magic only works once. But there are things some can do to help you. Things _I_ can do.” Katya reached out with her open hand and grabbed something out of thin air. “I proposed this to Arthur before, but he was very adamant not to do this. I can’t blame him, but in this case, I hope he will forgive me.”

She held out her hand and in the center of her palm there was something Alfred was achingly familiar with – a pretty, swirly zephyr that gleamed, as if Katya had dipped it in gold before offering it to him.

“This won’t cure you. This isn’t the cure that Arthur was looking for, this is a…respite. Added time. It’s the best I can do with the powers at my disposal.”

Alfred took the sweet from her hand and looked at it curiously. Definitely golden, and it felt heavy and hot against his palm.

“What’s this made of, Kat? It doesn’t look like candy.”

“It’s not…candy. It’s made of the last pieces of gold I still had from my mother.”

Alfred thought of this Russian fairy tale that Katya told him years before, about golden shackles and a Princess that was locked away inside a palace.

“Kat, when I wake up from this dream thing, you and I need to have a talk. I don’t want to push or anything, but at this point, I think you owe it to me.”

“Yes, I think I do. I am sorry, but I can’t promise I will be able to answer your questions.” Behind her, the field of sunflowers was being torn away by the approaching storm, faster and more menacing than before. The storm was approaching them from all angles, surrounding them, but between the two of them the Sun was still shining. “You know, Ivan could cure you. Ivan could snap his fingers, and he would be able to give you things no one else could. Riches and power and immortality, the whole world at your feet if you’d be inclined to ask for it. Even now, I can smell him on you, you know. The magic he has is so unique…”

“Then would it…”Alfred began, playing with the golden zephyr, running his fingers over it. “You said this isn’t a cure. Just added time. Wouldn’t it be better, easier to just ask Ivan for help?” 

Katya shook her head.

“No. My brother is…fiercely possessive and very passionate. I am afraid such request would give him too much power over you. That’s not something I want, Alfred, I do not want you to feel like you owe my brother loyalty. And I want you to have something much more precious than power. Choice.”

The winds were howling now, close to them. Gone was the light breeze from the beginning, but Alfred didn’t feel the cold.

“Ivan spent so many years of his life chasing down being and magicians, fate weavers that could show him the path of his life and what lay in store for him. All of that time, all that energy – he wanted to see the threads of his life,  just so he could unravel them and remake them in a way that suited him.” Katya laughed. “Ivan wanted to know what his destiny was for the sole purpose of spitting in its face.

I chose not believe in things such as fate. And a love that is designated by fate feels cheap, does it not? So take that, please. You have to bite into it and swallow it. And then you’ll wake up and you will have choices and options. If you wish to continue with Arthur, I’m sure he will be able to find a more permanent solution. If you wish to ask for my brother’s help…if you wish to go to him in the future…let it be by own your choice, without constraints.”

Katya took a shaky breath before she continued,

“Make sure to ask a lot of questions, Alfred, and understand what lays in this world beyond what you see. Go and live life as a normal human for a while. See what you want. At some point, you told me that you know what the things you’d die for are. Take your time and find out what the things you’d live for are, what you couldn’t live without and make your choices based on that. You’re so painfully young, _dorogoy_ , I don’t want let anyone take away your ability to make your own path.”

“Kat, why does it feel like you’re saying goodbye to me?”

She laughed sadly, like it was coming from the depths of her chest, painfully clawing its way through her throat.

“It’s not goodbye. It’s just…until I see you again.” She took his hand in hers, closed his fingers around the golden confectionary. “Now eat.”

Alfred didn’t give himself time to think about what was happening, he raised the zephyr to his mouth and took a bite out of it. It was soft and it crumbled inside his mouth, melted against his tongue, like all the other times Katya had made it for him. It tasted like strawberries, and he felt something warm and sluggish and sweet spreading through his body, like honey running through is veins.

When he looked at his fingers, they were stained with gold.

“I’m so glad to have met you, Alfred.” Kat said with devastating finality.

The dark, raging storm was so close, it was all around them, there was no more sun, no more golden sunflowers, but Alfred didn’t feel it, the storm wasn’t going to touch him, but it swallowed Katya whole, it made her figure dark, it made her disappear like she was never there.

Alfred called out to her, but he instinctively knew that she wouldn’t hear, Kat wasn’t there anymore, it was just him.

And then he woke up.

 

* * *

 

 

Alfred woke up gasping, his chest expanding to what felt like being beyond its capacity. He couldn’t get enough air in, but every breath he took felt painfully good. Like he had been underwater for a long time and now he broke through the surface of the water, he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs.

And he was alive, and he wasn’t in pain, and he didn’t have a fever.

His dream and Katya’s words were still clinging to the back of his brain and he was just so damn happy that he was alive and not dead, it took a couple of seconds too long to realize that something wasn’t right. His breath was fogging in front of himself, as if the room was cold. But Alfred didn’t feel it.

He turned in bed, looked at that glass door of the room’s little balcony, expecting to find it open again.  And he was right about that, the door was open. He was also not alone. Ivan was standing there with the moonlight behind him, looking tall and imposing and every bit the Ivan Tsarevitch of Katya’s stories.

And Alfred couldn’t take his eyes off of him.

“You are finally awake.” Ivan started, voice surprisingly rough. “I was beginning to think you would not wake up tonight, but I am glad to have been mistaken.” There was relief there, or at least something that Alfred wanted to think of as relief.

“Do you know how long I’ve been asleep?”

Ivan crossed the room in a couple of steps, until he was sitting beside the bed. It made Alfred want to clutch the blanket closer to himself, acutely aware of his own body, of his fever sticky skin. Fever, yes.

“It’s been five days, by my count. Everyone was very worried about you, all of them thought you might not wake up.”

“Because I was dying. I was, wasn’t I?”

Ivan looked at him for a long moment, and then sat down on the covers. He regarded Alfred with a serious face.

“Yes. You were. But not anymore.”

“Because of what Kat, did right? I dreamed of her.”

“My sister took it upon herself to make up you better. I think after so much time spent with you and your brother, she became very fond of you.”

Alfred didn’t say anything to that, though he felt his cheeks heat up for some strange reason. He felt so uncomfortable in his skin, he would have liked a bath, but now was neither the time or place for it. Instead, he let his gaze drift off to the side. He thought he saw something strange with the corner of his eye, and turned towards the door.

The door was completely frozen, the whole wall was covered by a thick, almost opaque shield of ice. His jaw dropped and he found himself blinking stupidly at it.

Completely frozen.

Oh my God, was he still dreaming?

“Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“My door is…frozen.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

Ivan spoke so matter of factly, like Alfred was the weird one for questioning it, of course his door was frozen over. No big deal.

“ _Why_?”

“Oh, I told you, Alfred. I was waiting for you to wake up. I meant to talk to you and I very much doubt that Mister Kirkland would have been civil if he found me here.” He considered his next words carefully, until he reached the conclusion that left Alfred even more confused than he already was, “I must admit, I might have overdone it, but I did want to take extra-precautions.”

“Extra-precautions?” Alfred had to admit he was slightly afraid of what that meant. Extra precautions meant that one set of precautions were already in place, and Ivan had deemed them insufficient.

“Yes. You see, everyone in the house is already asleep and they won’t be waking up until morning. There’s always the slight possibility, though, no matter how small, that one of them would be able to break away from my spell. In that case, surely they would come to check up on you first and they would cut my time with you short. That possibility was unacceptable.”

That was…that was too much for Alfred to try to digest.

He almost died. His mother-figure was a witch or something close to it. Ivan was…who knew that Ivan was? Alfred was confused.

He didn’t say anything, just let himself flop back onto the pillows and put a hand over his eyes. Maybe if he fell asleep, the world would right himself by the time he woke up and he make sense of it. But Alfred had been in a feverish daze for the past days, he didn’t want to sleep.

“Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“What are you?” He found himself asking before he even thought about it. After the words left his lips, he turned to look at Ivan, curious. The question had already been asked, there was no taking it back, and Ivan look as if he was contemplating an answer.

Alfred gave him time to think about whether or not he wanted to answer and turned on his side, shuffling slightly to make room on the side of the bed. From this angle, he could see Ivan better. He grabbed the covers and pulled them closer to his chest. There was enough space now that, if Ivan wanted to, he could lay down as well and…

Huh.

That was a thought.

Before he had the chance to mull that over, Ivan took a deep breath and started talking.

“I am unsure how to answer that question. What am I? I am – what I was born to be. ” There was a laugh there, but it had nothing in common with the amused rumbling that made Alfred feel warm and heavy in his chest, no. This was something closer to glasses breaking, all shallow and sharp and painful. “I am something halfway between the Grim Reaper and the things parents use to scare their children against going in the woods.”

That…was not what Alfred was expecting. He wondered if it was meant to scare him or put him off, or if Ivan truly thought that way about himself. However, Katya’s words were still in his head and even without them, it was very hard to look at Ivan and not remember him cradling Alfred’s face, running his bare fingers over his throat. The memory of it made Alfred swallow drily and there it was again, the too strong awareness of his body, of the way the fabric of his pajamas was shifted when he moved – so he decided not to move at all.

Ivan himself didn’t say anything else, didn’t look at Alfred. He was all bundled up in clothes – heavy coat and gloves and scarf around his neck. His elbows were resting on his knees and his back  tense and his shoulders were hunched forward. His gaze was fixed down. Ivan had said he wanted to talk to Alfred, but he wasn’t talking, the silence was stretching out between the two of them.

And Alfred, he was feeling his bones and his muscles vibrating with some sort of unnamed impulse and there was still…

A thought.

An idea, hailing back from all those nights in which he woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, from when loneliness and restlessness were boiling inside of him.

And looking at Ivan, Alfred knew with absolute certainty that the other man was intimately familiar with those feelings.

“Hey, Ivan?”

“Yes, Alfred?”

“Lay down.”

“Excuse me?” And Ivan’s violet eyes that shined in the darkness of the room were on him, a sharp movement of his body made him turn to Alfred and look at him as if Alfred had suggested as they tear down the moon together.

It was genuinely an endearing look on his face, though, all big eyes and slack lips, but it was gone altogether too quickly, before Alfred could properly enjoy it. It replaced by frowning eyebrows and squint, like Ivan was searching his face and looking for the trap. Distrust and misunderstanding wasn’t something Alfred wanted to  navigate, though. He had more than enough of that in the past few…days? Weeks? Hours? The past few years of his life?

“You said you wanted to talk, right? But you’re not really talking, so I guess you’re all awkward about it, what with freezing my door and cursing everyone in the house…”

“…I did not curse them, I just…”

“Yeah, you didn’t _curse_ them” Alfred continued, without missing a beat. Luckily for him he was very proficient at eye-rolling, even though in this case it made his head hurt. Were they really supposed to argue the semantics of spells versus curses? “ But still, Ivan – frozen door, magicking everyone. It’s a lot of effort just to get to talk to someone. But you’re not talking, so I just suggested a way to make things more comfortable if you laid down.” It sounded perfectly reasonable to Alfred. If he had something important to talk about with Mattie, if it was God-Knows-What-In-The-Morning, it made him feel safer to crawl in the same bed as his twin. He could bury his face in the pillow if he didn’t want Mattie to see his face, he could talk in hushed tones and know that someone was listening.

Some things you don’t say out loud, with your back straight and your face in the sunlight. Some things you only say at night with your head buried in a pillow and in hushed tones. Maybe  this was that kind of conversation.

“I doubt laying down in bed with you would make me feel more comfortable,” Ivan told him with a huff. A very grown up, adult sounding huff, but Alfred still called it as such. It was the little things, he realized, the little things that he was looking for to cement the fact that Ivan was an actual person and not –

Not Ivan Braginsky, the big, looming shadow that Katya talked about and not the thing that he said he was.

He really needed to remember all those things, because he had a feeling that if Ivan just disappeared now it would be very easy to fall into the trap of forgetting.

“Yeah, well – if it wouldn’t make you feel more comfortable, it would make me feel better. At least I would have to look up at you to see you.”

There had to be a place where the big, looming shadow met the man that cast it - so Alfred decided, let this be it.

It took a few seconds for Ivan to make up his mind, and Alfred could almost see the exact moment in which he reached his decision. The other took a deep breath, closed his eyes and let himself fall down on the bed next to Alfred with all the grace of a log. Coat, scarf, boots and all.

He looked so uncomfortable it hurt to look at him.

It also made Alfred laugh, which earned him a very dirty look.

“You’re very bad at this, aren’t you?” He didn’t even bother to hide his amusement.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. You said lay down – I did.”

“Yeah, but the point of this wasn’t to just lay down. It was also to feel more comfortable.” If people could spontaneously shrink under someone’s gaze, Alfred was pretty sure Ivan would have used that on him. As far as Alfred knew, though, that wasn’t something Ivan could to. But hey – he didn’t think people could freeze doors either, and yet….”what I’m saying is – you need to take off the coat and the boots, Ivan. And the scarf. It’s making me think you’re just gonna disappear any second now.”

The level of distrust Ivan seemed to have about the whole situation was palpable, but he actually did what Alfred asked him. Got up and took off his boots, took off the coat and draped it on a chair. He hesitated at the scarf, but eventually did unwind it from his neck, and then he made to turn to bed and join Alfred.

“Take the gloves off too.”

“That might not be a good idea.”

“Nothing is gonna to happen if you take them off, will it? You did before. I didn’t die or anything when you touched me.”

Ivan didn’t listen to him in this, though. He just laid down again, facing Alfred. Well – you couldn’t win them all from the first go. At least Ivan took off the coat and the scarf without much of a fuss. There was very plain button-down shirt beneath coat, and just…pants. He almost looked ordinary, if not for the eyes and the hair and tallness and the paleness and the…well, the general Ivan appearance. But at least he didn’t have the coat on, and he was dressed in a boring shirt with boring buttons even though he was the same man that had consumed so much of his thoughts for the past two years and now he finally had face.

And it was a face that was very close to Alfred, a blond head that was sharing his pillows, and eyes with droopy eyelids and really delicate eyelashes now that Alfred was looking at him. He’d been closer to Ivan, though, hadn’t he?

Lips touching and mouths open and tongues tasting and that had been yesterday and Alfred had run away because he had no idea what was happening.

He wasn’t really sure what was happening now, or what was supposed to happen. It’s not like he really had a plan before going into this.

“Alfred?” That was it, what he was hoping to achieve. That whispered tone that Ivan had when he said his name, like they were trading secrets.

“Yes?” His own voice was all weird, too rushed to his own years and breathy, like he forgot he was supposed to inhale and exhale.

Ivan was looking at him like he was seeing him for the first time, like Alfred was this curious sort of creature that he didn’t know how to place, where he came from or what made him tick. Alfred understood that – he spent a lot of time picking things apart just to see how they worked, what connected to what, what was at their core. Then he tried to put them back together, but he rarely got them to work just so.

All the delicate wiring inside a machine, all the clogs and the nuts and bolts – even if he put them back exactly as they were when he started, there was always the chance that the machine just didn’t work afterwards.

He really hoped Ivan wasn’t inclined to experiment like that.

“What do you want, Alfred?”

And that was the question, right? What did Alfred want?

He mulled over the question. For starters, he wanted to not die. That was pretty important. But let’s say that for the time being, Kat fixed that, so it shouldn’t be an issue and the moment, right?

Right.

Next thing.

Alfred really, really wanted his brother. He missed Mattie, fiercely and intensely, and he had been missing his brother for a damn long time. Like there was this large hole inside his chest and it was shaped like Mattie, and there was a voice in his ear that was missing, and it called him Alfie and told him that he was being childish.

He had been angry at his brother – so, so angry, and for a long time as well. He felt angry and resentful and betrayed. Before that, he had no idea he could feel so much anger towards one person, never imagined that person would be Mattie, because Mattie was literally his other self, like they were identical twins which meant they were from the same egg.

But he had been so angry and he felt so betrayed, because Mattie found with Katya a sort of bond that he just didn’t have with Alfred and could never have with Alfred and Alfred didn’t have anyone like that and he had been jealous of it and he wanted that sort of thing too, but mostly he was angry at Mattie and felt betrayed because _how dare he._

How dare he have someone like that, someone that shared his silences, how dare he choose to go down that path where Alfred couldn’t follow him. So he wanted – to run away and let Mattie hurt just about as much as Alfred was hurting about it.

It seemed very pointless now and he really wanted his brother back and he wanted to apologize, and he wanted to tell Mattie all about… _this._ About Florence and the Uffizi and about Ivan, oh my god, he really wanted to tell Mattie about Ivan and he hoped that his brother would be okay with it, and he wanted to tell him that he got his first kiss, and then he got a second chance at a first kiss and he wanted say – _Hey Mattie, I did it, I cracked the secret, I met Ivan, and I think I get it now, I get it. All those books you were reading._

But Mattie was in London, with Katya. There was still time to get to that. Mattie was in London, and he was here.

And here was in a room in the Vargas villa, with a wall that was frozen over. _Here_ was laying in bed, next to someone that was really there in that very moment.

It didn’t make a lot of sense to think about things in the abstract. So it was less about what Alfred wanted in general, more about what Alfred wanted in this particular moment. And to narrow it down further, it was about what Alfred wanted from Ivan. Ivan could decide afterwards if he was willing to give it.

But that just confused him again – what did he want from Ivan?

Alfred was chewing on this bottom lip, trying to make sense of his desires and what they meant. One part of his mind as in absolute chaos, but it was somewhere in the back of his skull, bubbling away there. The forefront of his thoughts, those felt…strangely, absurdly calm. He was distantly struggling with hope and anger and fear and confusion and they didn’t go away, but was also…

Looking at Ivan and just sort of running his gaze across his features and taking in the details of his face and his bare throat and his buttons of his shirt and the fact that there was probably a whole expanse of skin and scars underneath that shirt, and they were being hidden by those very boring buttons. And hands and fingers underneath the gloves that Ivan had refused to take off and those hands and fingers had touched Alfred’s face, his cheeks and the skin below his eyes and his jawline and his throat, and Ivan had ran a thumb across his lips.

And Ivan had look at him then like _he had no idea what was happening,_ like Alfred hurt him but didn’t and like he wanted to steal Alfred away and then there the pain and then Ivan came here and now he was laying in bed with Alfred despite looking so uncomfortable and seriously spooked by it.

And Ivan was Ivan that he met in the Uffizi and Ivan that let Alfred kiss him because he asked, but he was also Ivan from all the stories. And Alfred knew that he played the piano and he liked the zephyrs that Katya made for him and his favorite story was about a woman that begged Death to save her from imprisonment and he spent too much time in the in-between worlds waiting for someone that never came.

And no one had ever looked at Alfred like Ivan did and there was no one else quite like Ivan, was there?

There was a shiver than went through him then, not all together unpleasant. It came with a little dizziness of power, that maybe Ivan didn’t know how to deal with this either and he didn’t have answers and maybe it really was Alfred that had the choice here on how he wanted define their relationship.

Damn.

Alfred’s body decided on a course of action before his mind was properly registering what he was doing. He took Ivan’s hand in his – the other man didn’t protest, but he did hear Ivan’s sharp in-take of breath and the way his body froze when Alfred took off his glove. Alfred had decided that he wasn’t going to let this be a big deal, he was going to treat the whole interaction like it was casual.

_Because it’s supposed to be easy, right?_

Alfred thought as he laced his fingers through Ivan’s, testing the action and not letting history and consequences and shit like magic and fate slips into the cracks. They would, they would inevitably and Alfred expected it, but he wanted to put it all off until the next time he woke up.

So they just there with their fingers entwined, their bodies close together but not really touching. It was weird, because Alfred thought he should be feeling some sort of warmth radiating from Ivan’s body. He wasn’t feeling it, just the warmth inside himself, in his stomach and his veins.

“Tell me something.” Alfred started quietly. Ivan was looking at their hands and he was rubbing his thumb across the back of Alfred’s hand.

“What would you like me to tell you, Alfred?”

“How old are you?” Keep simple and basic, that was the way to go.

“Very old. I do not remember the exact number anymore. I am older than the country you were born in.”

That…

That was….

Well.

Shit.

That was definitely…something.

Ivan took one glance at Alfred and started laughing at the expression that was probably all over his face.

“You did not expect that, _da_?”

Alfred just shook his head mutely, trying to process the information.

There was no way to properly process that kind of information, he realized, so he just shoved it into a box and stuffed the box into a corner of his mind.

Still. Fuck. Old. Very old.

“Does that scare you?” Ivan asked him mildly, and his gaze was still fixed on their hands, not looking at Alfred and he was very grateful for that. He didn’t know if he could have answered under the pressure of Ivan’s gaze.

“I don’t know yet,” which was the honest answer, “I think it should, but I’m not sure I’m scared yet. Should I be?”

“Fear is a good emotion to have, Alfred. It helps you protect yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s not an answer. Answer me. Should I be….” His throat was all dry and he swallowed heavily before continuing, “afraid? Of you?”

Ivan finally looked at him then, and Alfred wanted to hide his face in his pillow to get away from his eyes. There was something really heavy and real about this situation and sometimes Alfred didn’t really feel real enough for his own body, but he felt real now and present and very grounded in this moment. It felt like there were too many emotions that were there and Alfred couldn’t identify most of them, didn’t have words for the others.

“I do not know,” Ivan answered after turning the question in his head for several minutes. “I do not wish to hurt you, but I do not think I can safely vouch for the purity of my intentions.” That made Alfred suck in a breath.

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean in this case, Ivan.” That made Ivan’s lips quirk in the darkness.

“I am afraid I am not completely sure myself. I think I want to take you with me.”

“Take me with you…where?”

“Wherever you would like to go, I suppose.” Ivan said, and turned on his back. He still kept his hand closed around Alfred, his grip even tightened as he turned to fix his eyes to the ceiling. “I am not especially attached to any place in particular, nor do I hold any strong feelings regarding anyone.” Ivan licked his lips before continuing, “I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about you either. For the longest time, I thought I had made my peace with my lot in this existence.” Ivan movement made the pillows rustle, he turned to look at Alfred and his bang fell across his eyes, “But I never anticipated you.”

And that was spoken with such raw emotion that it made Alfred’s heart do this funny little twist and woosh inside his chest.

“You should probably figure it out,” Alfred added after a long moment of silence dragged on for too long. His own words sounded foreign to him, all trembling and young and he was ashamed in the moment for how damn childish he sounded to his own ears, “Before you…”

He couldn’t say it. It just got stuck in against his throat like a poisoned apple.

There were few things that caused him true and real fear, but he thought about the Primavera and he thought about Chloris with flowers spilling from her mouth and Zephyr’s grey-blue skin. He tried to remember all the warnings in all the stories – don’t touch the spindle, don’t open the door, don’t eat the fruits, whether they be apples or pomegranates.

“I would never steal you away, Alfred. No need be afraid of that,” Ivan said with a laugh.  “I wouldn’t know what to do with you even if I did. And I am many things, Alfred, but a thief I am not.”

He supposed that was something meant to reassure him of Ivan’s intentions, but truth be told it did nothing to set his mind at ease

“Why not?” He asked and scooted closer to Ivan. The bed dipped under both of them and pressed them together, and Alfred was aware he was gripping Ivan’s fingers in a fierce hold.

“That should be obvious, Alfred.” Ivan’s hand that wasn’t held in a death grip by Alfred reached out towards him and his still gloves fingers ran through Alfred’s hair. “I told you. I think I want to keep you. Things you steal are never are not yours to keep.”

And he either looked sad and wistful and hopeful when he said that, or Alfred  just wished Ivan was sad and wistful and hopeful while saying that – but whatever sort of feelings were showing themselves on Ivan’s face, they made something inside Alfred’s chest grow and expand, like a dough rising and filling spaces that he didn’t know existed.

He didn’t let Ivan’s hand pull away from his hair. Alfred grabbed him by the wrist and kept him in place, pushed in head against the palm and fingers that were in front of him, like a cat that wanted to be petted, like Alfred himself was a needy little thing that needed comforting.

Nothing had made him feel for vulnerable before, but his bones and his skin and his muscles, all of them wanted closer and warmer and something. The feeling of growing and expanding in his chest, it was all big and powerful and he wondered if maybe Ivan, old as he was and whatever he was, maybe he felt it too?

Maybe this was the thing that pulled them together, the mark of death that Romulus had been talking about, maybe it was because Alfred’s heart wasn’t supposed to be beating but it was, maybe that’s why he felt like he wanted to….he wanted to…

What did Alfred want to do?

 _I want to see into your heart_ , Alfred wanted to say _. To see if it’s all fields of golden sunflowers and blue skies, or is it like the storm that swallowed up Katya in my dream_? _Did you ever find that thing that you were looking for, or is this it?_

But he didn’t know what words he was supposed to use to ask those things or if he even truly wanted Ivan to answer. He didn’t know if he trusted Ivan to be honest, but…

Ivan was sitting completely still next to Alfred, not moving, not blinking, not breathing. Whatever was going to happen here, it wasn’t going to come from Ivan.

That was good. That was safe. Alfred hoped he wasn’t about to fuck this up.

What he really wanted was the ability to crawl inside the empty spaces of Ivan’s ribcage and make a nest there, to touch things and memories and thoughts and feelings and understand them without needing to talk, because there was no dictionary or vocabulary that could possibly make sense of whatever this was.

So in absence of that, he was supposed to do the next best thing.

Alfred sat up in bed and put his hand on Ivan’s chest, right where his heart was supposed to be. There was a sharp intake of breath from the man himself, but not a word was spoken. Alfred supposed he wanted to feel – something alien or otherworldly or miraculous, instead there was just the boring old cotton of the button-up.

So Alfred leaned forward, and pressed his face against Ivan’s chest and inhaled deeply. His clothes smelled clean, like his shirt was freshly taken off the rack and that was perhaps what gave away the alieness and otherness of the man below him. No hint of sweat, no human smell, just clean cotton.

He stayed there for a second, until he felt Ivan’s fingers caressing the back of his skull. That made him relax despite himself and Alfred let himself fully settle into the position he was, lay down against Ivan with his head against the other’s chest and his eyes closed and counting breaths, his and Ivan’s.

“Tell me something.”

“What should I tell you now?” Ivan asked, voice soft and steady. Alfred felt it his words as they were rumbling against his ribs.

“I dunno. Tell me a story.”

“I am not much of a storyteller. Katya got all the talent for that in our family” But with Ivan’s fingers running through his hair and caressing his skull, Alfred felt himself soft and pliant, and he wanted to be lulled into a sense of safety and security.

“Make one up. It doesn’t have to be great. It just has to be a story.”

But Ivan didn’t say anything at first and the silence stretched between them. Alfred felt himself drift off into sleep without meaning to, when he felt Ivan sigh heavily and then his voice broke through the haze of sleep.

“Once upon a time, there was a boy…”

“Was his name Ivan?” Alfred asked with a laugh, without opening his eyes.

“Alfred, you said you wanted a story. You should not interrupt people telling you stories.”

“Sorry, sorry. Geez, I can see the family resemblance.” At that, pressed himself more firmly against Ivan’s side and grabbed a handful of his shirt. He felt the fabric strain against his hand. The little buttons that held the thing closed, he cracked his eyes open and he focused on those buttons, and how easy it would be to pull at them. “In every story Kat ever told me, there was some sort of princeling that was called Ivan. After a while, you kinda know what to expect.”

“Do you want me to tell you a story or not?” Alfred imagined that Ivan was going for harsh or scolding, but he was very obviously amused, and the proximity of their bodies made it hard to sound anything but soft. Apparently, it’s hard to sound annoyed at someone that was using you as a pillow.

“Sure. Yeah. Tell me. Don’t mind me, I won’t interrupt again.” There was a short laugh from the other man.

“So – let’s start again. Once upon a time, there was a boy…”

“And his name was not-Ivan.”

“…exactly, his name was not-Ivan. Definitely not Ivan.”

“Was he a prince? Or the youngest son for a poor family that needed to find his fortune?” Alfred asked, teasing. One of his fingers was poking and prodding at a button, then absentmindedly he ran the same finger over the edge of Ivan’s shirt, where the two side of fabric overlapped. There was little pocket being formed there, right? And if Alfred were to slide his hand there…

“I haven’t thought about that, really.” Ivan admitted, and the hand that had been caressing the back of Alfred’s head stopped its motions and slid lower, until his finger were resting against the back of Alfred’s neck and just a tiny bit lower, like Ivan was gently running his forefinger against the bump created by vertebrae.

“Then you’re a shit story teller, Ivan, that’s the first thing you have to figure out.” But even to his own ears the protest sounded hallow. Alfred was all drowsy and content and feeling much to bold for his own good. “You need to know if you’re focusing on a prince or a pauper.” And with that, Alfred gave into the temptation of opening one of the buttons on Ivan’s shirt.

“Alfred…?”

But Ivan didn’t really stop him, which just meant that Alfred opened the next button as well…

“Here, let me help you understand.” And the next button, “This is how you start a story.”  And the next, “Once upon a time, there a boy.” And the next, “He was a prince.” And the next, “He lived in an enchanted castle, in the mountains.” And Alfred was all out of buttons, so he didn’t say anything. Ivan did say anything, didn’t move, Ivan had frozen, like if he so much was breathed he could cause damage to Alfred.

Meanwhile Alfred sat up slightly, he pulled himself away from Ivan – only a little bit – and looked down at Ivan, who now had all the buttons of his shirt open. Alfred thought – if he was already doing something stupid, he might as well do it all the way and at least not regret it afterwards.

So sat up properly then, with his knees bent underneath him and before he got a chance to think it through, he moved one of his legs across Ivan’s hip, straddling him.

The movement itself wasn’t necessarily foreign, it was like horseback riding, right? Legs on either side of a body, squeeze your thighs slightly, don’t let them throw you off. He wanted to take off Ivan’s shirt, or at least push it open enough to see the skin underneath, but both of his wrists were grabbed and pressed together firmly.

“Alfred. What are you doing?”

That was pretty much rhetorical question, wasn’t it? Ivan’s brows were furrowed, mouth set in a hard line, as if he was expecting Alfred to do something impossibly stupid. If he hadn’t had Alfred’s wrists in a strong grip, maybe Alfred would have felt the need to run his thumb across the lines formed on his brow.

“Nothing?” He answered with what he hoped was a charming smile. It seemed to have no effect on other man.

“ _Alfred_.”

“Nothing, really. I just wanted to…” _see you, see your skin, see if you have scars or bruises or if you’re made out of the same stuff that regular people are._

“You have no idea what you want, Alfred.”

And that was somewhat true, but at least Ivan’s voice was kinder when he said that, and his grip on Alfred’s wrists loosened enough for him to pull his hands away. Alfred’s response to that was to take Ivan’s hand in his and pull of the other glove as well and run his fingers across Ivan’s palm.

There was that sharp intake of breath again, like Alfred might have been hurting him and he didn’t wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull his hand away or not.

Alfred tried imagine what it was like, that thing that Katya told him about Ivan. That he couldn’t touch anything, that cats and dogs died if he tried to pet him, that flowers withered into nothing and people died is he tried to show affection. Alfred tried imagining someone that was as unsure as Ivan intentionally hurting people with his touch and couldn’t process it.

Ivan was looking at him carefully, eyes bright and shinning unnaturally from between his eyelashes, but he didn’t pull away and didn’t make any move to take Alfred off him. That made him take a deep breath, he let Ivan’s hand go and spread his palms on either side of Ivan’s open shirt.

“Let me?” He asked, looking into the other man’s eyes and hoping he could make the things he wanted say clear. Ivan didn’t answer him with words, but he let out a long suffering sigh, and became boneless against the pillows, forcing his whole body to relax.

So Alfred took that as an invitation, pushed Ivan’s shirt open, exposed his skin and scars and freckles. There was a big, angry looking scar across the left side of Ivan’s chest, where the skin looked as if it folded, but not quite glued together. Alfred ran his fingers over it slowly, afraid it would unravel if he pushed against it with any pressure. He felt Ivan shudder and tense all over when he touched it, but he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t take his hand away from it.

“What happened here?” He was fascinated by the way Ivan’s breathing changed under his exploration.

“Ah, _there_.” His voice was low and raspy, and Ivan let out a short, breathy laugh, Alfred felt the movement of it beneath his fingers, “A dragon clawed by heart out.”

“A dragon.”

“Yes, a true. A proper one, too, fire-breathing and all.” And Ivan laughed again, highly amused, most likely because of the incredulous look on Alfred’s face.

For his part, Alfred groaned, feeling completely out of his depth. He hunched his back forward and let his forehead rest against Ivan’s sternum.

“I have no idea if you’re making fun of me or not. There are no dragons.” And then he waited for a beat, two, three, until Ivan was running his hand over the bumps of Alfred’s spine. “Right?”

“There most certainly are dragons in this world, Alfred. Not many, not anymore, but I have met one.”

Alfred closed his eyes and relaxed, let himself fall heavily across Ivan’s chest. He hoped he wasn’t too heavy, but when he pushed his cheek against Ivan’s chest, he also decided he didn’t care about that, he wasn’t going to get up. It was like his body wanted to melt right into Ivan’s, despite the non-sense talk.

But maybe it wasn’t non-sense. Maybe Ivan really met a dragon?

“What was it like?” Alfred decided he would play along, voice mellow and low. He was rubbing circles gently against Ivan’s bare sides.

“ _He_. He would be very insulted if you called him an ‘it’. But to answer your question, he is very grumpy and lazy, lacks patience with everyone. I think that, should he be left to his own devices, he would content to sleep the centuries away.”

“Does he have wings?”

“No wings, I am afraid. Looks very much like a serpent, with the limbs of a lizard. Huge claws. ”

“Did you kill him?” Ivan laughed at him again. He put his hands around Alfred squeezed him close, and Alfred almost missed the next thing that was said, he couldn’t focus on words when his skin wanted was all hot and tingly for the contact.

“No, I did not. Despite the rare bouts of violence born out of disagreeing ideal, Yao and I have known each other for many, many years. I consider him my friend.” There was a pause, and then, “And I am not even sure if there is anything in this world that could kill Yao.”

Alfred’s hand migrated to the scar again, feeling the edges of it and the raw, painful texture of the skin there.

“What kind of a friend does something like this?”

“One that thinks their stopping you from committing a mistake. I assure you Alfred, Yao thought this was for my own good.” Ivan was so serious about it, and obviously rattled by whatever had happened. As a response, Alfred pressed his fingers harder against the scar tissue, until he heard a hiss of pain. He wanted it to bring Ivan back into the moment, into this very second where he was holding Alfred in his arms and not a violent disagreement with a drag…- friend. With a friend.

“It looks recent. And painful.”

“It is both, yes.” Ivan agreed, and he took Alfred’s hand off his scar, raised his finger to his lips and kissed the knuckles of Alfred’s hand. “It was the last event in a long struggle that sent me down this path I am now. Or the last thing standing in my way.”

“What do you mean?” And Ivan kept leaving these butterfly kisses across his hand, these soft gentle things that Alfred barely felt but they made him fill up with warmth, this bubbling thing that kept growing even if it already felt bigger than Alfred.

“Yao was very keen on keeping me away from Florence, away from you, I realize. To be fair, he didn’t know that you were you, he just knew that whatever awaited for me here would…change things.”

“So your friend thought the best way to keep you from meeting me was….claw your heart out?”

“I assure you, as far as Yao saw it, he was doing me a favor. Stopping me from committing a mistake and helping me get rid of a great flaw of mine that he profoundly disliked.”

“A heart is not a flaw, Ivan. It’s a vital organ, things tend to need their heart.” But now that Alfred thought about it – his cheek and his ear were pressed against Ivan’s chest, he should be…feeling? Hearing? A heartbeat.

“My physical heart was not what Yao was looking for. It was the other bits of it – sentiment, sentimentality. Those were the offensive things to him. Yao said – I was given too much of everything. Too much power, too much heart, hopelessness that ran too deep and a mind too restless. No balance.”

“How is that supposed to be a flaw? Caring is never wrong.” Alfred protested. Ivan didn’t answer him, but traced just Alfred’s features with his fingers – over his brows and across the bridge of his nose, the thin skin of his eyelids and under his eyes, the corners of his mouth and the lines across his lips.

When Alfred did eventually fall asleep, he was still straining to feel for the _thump_ _thump_ of Ivan’s heartbeat again his cheek.


End file.
